About a year ago, trainer Dominick Schettino got a telephone call from Jimmy Croupie from New Castle Farm in Ocala. The subject of the conversation was a New York-bred son of A.P. Jet who had just started to work.

"That's when he told me, 'Dominick, you have a special horse here,'" Schettino recalled. "They always said he was a very talented individual. Nobody knows how talented, but they knew he was very talented."

Saturday, that horse will get a chance to show just how talented he is in the $150,000 Gotham (GIII) at Aqueduct, when Galloping Grocer faces eight other 3-year-olds, including Survivalist and Naughty New Yorker, in one of New York's major preps for the Kentucky Derby.

"I'd like to see him win," said Schettino, 38. "And I did want to get three races into him to prep him for the Kentucky Derby. But what I'm looking for is a good race out of him."

After winning his first three starts at age 2, Galloping Grocer suffered his first loss in the Remsen (GII), losing to top Derby contender Rockport Harbor after a rousing stretch battle. Sent off at 1-2 in his first start as a 3-year-old, he finished fourth behind Sort It Out in the Whirlaway after being pressed all the way and came out of the race with a gash in his right hind leg.

"The race did a lot for him, you know, after that layoff," said Schettino. "The race wasn't as bad as everybody thinks of it. He came out of it with two minor little problems, a gash, and then he bruised his foot which had him miss the Fountain of Youth."

Which is how Galloping Grocer wound up in the one-turn, one-mile Gotham, a steppingstone to the $750,000 Wood Memorial (GI) on April 9, the final major New York prep for the Kentucky Derby.

"The one turn mile - absolutely I'd rather see two turns, but this is our site preference for that with the Wood Memorial," Schettino said, noting that Galloping Grocer's ability to rate or be on the front end can only help him in the Gotham. "We figured we'd stay here even though it's going to be one mile of preparation."

Schettino isn't the only trainer in the Gotham with Derby hopes for his 3-year-old. Up from Florida is the Shug McGaughey-trained Survivialist, who finished second to Derby contender Sun King in a one-mile allowance at Gulfstream in his last start.

"I thought (his race against Sun King) was pretty good," said Buzzy Tenney, assistant to McGaughey. "Saturday will be his third start of the year so I'd expect him to continue improving."

Naughty New Yorker, second to Galloping Grocer in the Sleepy Hollow and second ahead of him in the Whirlaway, is another New York-bred with classic aspirations.

"I'm really looking forward to running him at longer distances but we not going to get that for a while," said trainer Pat Kelly of the son of Quiet American, who has been first or second in his last five starts. "I just want to get him through the winter to the mile-and-an-eighth Wood Memorial the best way we can."

Also entered in the Gotham were Maddy's Lion, who won the Jimmy Winkfield Stakes by 6 1/4-lengths, Distinctive Trick, winner of the Fred "Cappy" Capossela Stakes, and Pavo, who won the City Zip Stakes in December and finished second in the Battaglia Memorial at Turfway Park as well as the Capossela.

Here is the complete field for the Gotham, from the rail out: Distinctive Trick (Mike Luzzi); Mr. Congeniality (Shaun Bridgmohan); Galloping Grocer (Mike Luzzi); Byanosejoe (Aaron Gryder); Maddy's Lion (Pablo Fragoso); Naughty New Yorker (Jean-Luc Samyn); Lieutenant Danz (Julio Espinoza); Survivalist (Richard Migliore), and Pavo (Alan Garcia).

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