Essential Quality to train up to Breeders' Cup Classic

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Essential Quality and Knicks Go, the top two current favorites for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, are on a steady work pattern at Churchill Downs for trainer Brad Cox but are taking divergent paths to the $6 million race on Nov. 6 at Del Mar.

Cox said early this week that after mulling an in-between start for Essential Quality, he has decided the gray colt will train straight into the 1 1/4-mile BC Classic off his latest victory in the Travers on Aug. 28. Knicks Go will have his final pre-race work Saturday ahead of his final prep, the Lukas Classic on Oct. 2 at Churchill.

Essential Quality, the standout Godolphin homebred 3-year-old with eight wins from nine career starts, resumed breezing last Saturday when going a half-mile in 49.40 seconds.

“The plan is to have all his works here,” Cox said. “He’ll pretty much work every Saturday from here on in until we leave for Del Mar. It’s 10 weeks from the Travers to the Classic, and that’s just fine.”

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Knicks Go, a last-out winner of the Whitney on Aug. 1 for the Korea Racing Authority, figures as a huge favorite in the 1 1/8-mile Lukas Classic. The 5-year-old horse has worked twice at Churchill since returning from Saratoga, the latest a six-furlong drill last Saturday in 1:12.80, and will “do something a little easier, a little shorter, this Saturday,” Cox said.

“Both horses are doing great,” he added.

The Keeneland fall meet is when several of his other stakes horses will race next, said Cox, including Bonny South in the Spinster on Oct. 10; Turnerloose, a highly impressive winner of the Kentucky Downs Juvenile Fillies, in the Jessamine on Oct. 13; and Adventuring, winner of the Dueling Grounds Oaks, in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup on Oct. 16 or Valley View on Oct. 29.

Also, Juliet Foxtrot, winner of the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland in April, is officially retired, Cox said. The 5-year-old Juddmonte Farms homebred, an earner of $745,931 from 22 starts, was third in her final race, the Matchmaker on July 17 at Monmouth Park.