King Cause takes early lead, stays there in Knickerbocker Stakes
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Two years after nearly dying from a rare infection, King Cause became a graded stakes winner Sunday at Aqueduct, recording a front-running, two-length victory in the Grade 3, $150,000 Knickerbocker Stakes.
Put on the lead by Kendrick Carmouche, King Cause led his nine rivals on a merry, albeit futile, chase, in winning the Knickerbocker over Pixelate, who nosed out Safe Conduct for second.
The win was the eighth from 33 starts for King Cause, a 7-year-old gelding by Creative Cause, and his first in a graded race. King Cause won the Kentucky Cup Classic earlier this year over Turfway Park’s synthetic surface.
Sunday’s victory was quite meaningful to owner Steve Spielman, who heads the ownership group known as Nice Guys Stables.
“He’s an amazing horse. He got real sick, we saved his life, he was off for about a year,” Spielman said. “He’s come back and paid us back in spades.”
Spielman said after King Cause won an allowance race at Saratoga in August 2020 he developed an infection that doctors had a hard time diagnosing. Spielman put up $40,000 of his own money to continue care for the gelding. Spielman said that Dr. Nathan Slovis of Hagyard Medical Institute in Lexington, Ky., played a key role in saving the gelding’s life. Spielman said ultimately it was determined the horse had a rare infection outside of his lungs.
“He invested three or four months of quite extensive research figuring out what was wrong with this horse,” Spielman said. “They tried so many different antibiotics before they figured it out. He loves this horse.”
King Cause was away from the races for 13 months before returning in September 2021. The Knickerbocker was his fourth win from 12 starts since then. Mike Maker has trained him for all those starts.
Spielman said that King Cause likes to be on the lead and Carmouche was able to get him to the front without any trouble. King Cause had a clear lead through fractions of 25.33 seconds for the quarter, 50.90 for the half-mile, 1:14.87 for six furlongs, a mile in 1:38.30. He covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:50.06 and returned $32.80 to win. He earned a 98 Beyer Speed Figure. King Cause is a half-brother to Bell’s the One, a Grade 1 winner who has earned more than $2 million.
Carmouche last rode King Cause in a June stakes at Parx Racing, where he finished third with some trouble.
“In Philadelphia, I got bottled up a little, I thought he should have won,” Carmouche said. “Coming into today’s race, not a lot of speed, so let me break sharp see where I’m at. Those guys took a hold, I was able to walk as slow as I could and he made himself a winner.”
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.