Knicks Go would be the third Maryland-bred to win Breeders' Cup Classic
Maryland celebrated its state breeding program and stallions on Saturday, with Jim McKay Maryland Million Day at Laurel Park. But Maryland’s brightest star of the year was not in attendance. Maryland-bred Knicks Go was breezing at Churchill Downs on Saturday in preparation for a cross-country trip to Del Mar and the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
This will be the third appearance at the Breeders’ Cup for Knicks Go, a 5-year-old Paynter horse bred by the Moore family’s Greenmount Farm in Glyndon, Md. Knicks Go finished a creditable second to divisional champion Game Winner in the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs. He captured last year’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile in track-record time at Keeneland. Overall, Knicks Go has won six graded stakes and earned more than $5.5 million.
The Moores bred and raised Knicks Go, out of the Outflanker mare Kosmo’s Buddy, who herself made four appearances on the Maryland Million program, winning the 2008 Maryland Million Turf Sprint Handicap.
“He was an extremely sweet foal,” Sabrina Moore, whose mother, Angie, is the breeder of record of Knicks Go, told the Maryland Jockey Club. “So nice, so cuddly.”
They sold the colt for $40,000 as a weanling at the 2016 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. He was later purchased by the Korea Racing Authority for $87,000 at the Keeneland September yearling sale.
The Moores were in attendance when Knicks Go won this summer’s Grade 1 Whitney at Saratoga to take control of the older horse division.
“Watching him after he just won that big race, and he was so cool and calm and collected back at the barn – it looked like he just went on another morning gallop,” Sabrina Moore said. “It was really neat to see him going from little fluffy baby to this super racehorse.”
Knicks Go is the fifth Maryland-bred to win a Breeders’ Cup race. He is now seeking to become the third Maryland-bred to win the Classic, and the first horse bred in the state to win two Breeders’ Cup races. Concern won the 1994 Classic at Churchill Downs but finished eighth behind another Maryland-bred, the great Cigar, in the 1995 edition at Belmont. Cigar himself was a hard-fought third in his repeat bid in the 1996 Classic at Woodbine.
The other Maryland-breds to win Breeders’ Cup races are Safely Kept in the 1990 Sprint and Sharing in the 2019 Juvenile Fillies Turf.