Knicks Go makes it all look easy

Bob Wisener
Bob Wisener

The Breeders' Cup wasn't the hottest topic in the sports world last week -- we can thank Aaron Rodgers and the Atlanta Braves -- but 14 championship races in two days helped define the horse-racing season.

With nine entered in the $6 million Classic, North America's richest race, trainer Brad Cox looked perfectly poised with the top two morning-line choices. Knicks Go was the 9-5 favorite and Essential Quality the 3-1 second choice when the windows opened, both coming off BC wins last year. Knicks Go, at age 5, got the edge mainly because of experience whereas Essential Quality, at 3, would be facing older horses for the first time.

The biggest questions about Knicks Go were the mile-and-a-quarter distance -- Essential Quality won the Belmont Stakes going a mile and a half -- and whether he could withstand a frontal attack from other speed horses.

Both Cox horses had board finishes Saturday at Del Mar but in a different order than expected and with a pace scenario that stumped the experts.

Knicks Go, leading from gate to wire, won by 2 3/4 lengths, paying a generous $8.40 as second betting choice. Although just off Candy Ride's track record, the winner shaded 2 minutes (1:59.57) at the classic American distance. With three Grade 1 wins, Knicks Go sewed up Horse of the Year, the first such honor for Cox, the Eclipse Award-winning trainer last year after four BC victories.

What amazed many is that Knicks Go appeared to do it without breaking a sweat. As billed, he proved the speed of the speed, especially when able to walk the dog, so to speak, through the early fractions.

If the race wasn't over when he led by a length after the opening quarter in 23.16 seconds, it was decided when he got a breather through a fourth quarter of 25.24. He came home in 24.29, extending his lead, and "ridden out" by Joel Rosario, per the Equibase chart.

Where was the other speed? Medina Spirit, front-running winner of the Kentucky Derby, entered the stretch four horses wide. Hot Rod Charlie, another need-the-lead type, got caught inside and "flattened out." Both were thought to have brilliant speed, which Essential Quality, a somewhat surprising 9-5 favorite, was thought to lack.

Essential Quality, third, beaten 3 1/2 lengths, isn't the only good horse who ever lost when an expected pace meltdown failed to materialize. Worse, for the early-season Oaklawn winner, it may cost him the 3-year-old championship, Medina Spirit (second) placing ahead of Essential Quality for the second time this year.

That is, if Eclipse Award voters can put aside their disgust with trainer Bob Baffert and make objective decisions. Medina Spirit, his Kentucky Derby victory still challenged because of a failed drug test, came back with two Grade 1 victories late in the year after running third in the Preakness. He led Essential Quality in earnings ($3,520,000 to $3.42 million) despite an inferior won-lost record (9-4-4-1 to 7-5-0-1).

Knicks Go, meanwhile, went 7-5-0-0 for a season-high $7,324,140. He is the first horse to sweep the Dirt Mile and Classic, taking the former race last year at Keeneland. In his first race for Cox, Knicks Go started his 4-year-old season winning an allowance/optional claimer at Oaklawn.

A 10-3-1 runner from 24 starts for more than $8.6 million, Knicks Go was good enough at 2 to run second in the BC Juvenile for trainer Ben Colebrook. He ran third in the Grade 3 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs, long since paying back the $87,000 spent for him at a Keeneland yearling sale.

Under Cox, Knicks Go has become a monster, winning Grade 1s at three different tracks in 2021, and a world traveler, to boot. Fourth in the Saudi Cup and Belmont Park's Met Mile, he began a summer of splendor with a 113 Beyer Speed Figure in the Grade 3 Cornhusker Handicap at Iowa's Prairie Meadows. The 111 he got for beating a top field in Saratoga's Grade 1 Whitney convinced this observer that he just might get a mile and a quarter.

If Knicks Go left no doubt, some other Breeders' Cup races were head-scratchers: Gamine third at 2-5 as defending champion in the Filly & Mare Sprint, Jackie'e Warrior sixth at 4-5 in the Sprint and Horse of the Year outsider Letruska 11th at 8-5 in the Distaff.

Baffert won the Juvenile with favored Corniche but saw one of his former horses, Life Is Good, now trained by Todd Pletcher, get Eclipse 3-year-old buzz winning the Dirt Mile. Steve Asmussen won the Juvenile Fillies with Echo Zulu, from the first crop of 2017 HOY and Classic winner Gun Runner, but was puzzled as anyone else by Jackie's Warrior's flat performance.

One couldn't help but cheer for Wayne Catalano, whose only starter, Aloha West, took the Sprint in the final jump. Thumbing through the past performances, one found the Hard Spun colt won at first asking at Oaklawn Feb, 7. Excuse us for not remembering.

Catalano, an ex-jockey of some who trained an Arkansas Derby winner, called it his career highlight. Plenty more could say the same on this glorious day.

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