Korea's home run horse Knicks Go headed to Taylor Made

Five years ago, the Korean racing and breeding industry experienced a year of milestones and important developments. In 2016, Korea sent its first runners to the Breeders’ Cup and the Dubai Carnival; hosted the inaugural Korea Cup meeting, in association with Keeneland; and was elevated into Part II of the International Cataloguing Standards Book.

Perhaps most importantly, the country stepped up its buying at major sales. Korean owners placed a premium on American stock as the industry gained traction, because racing in Korea is conducted on dirt due to frequent wet weather. However, for many years, their activity at U.S. sales was curtailed because the national government, which regulates Thoroughbred activities, had imposed a price limit on imported horses.

In 2017, after the easing of those restrictions, the Korea Racing Authority made a significant purchase, picking up a gray Maryland-bred colt from the second crop of Paynter for a relatively hefty $87,000 at the Keeneland September yearling sale. The KRA takes a scientific approach in selecting its horses, one that utilizes pedigree nicking patterns and genetic testing. They named the colt after a particular genome selection program, called K-Nicks.

Knicks Go proved to be a slam dunk and is the likely 2021 Horse of the Year and one of Kentucky’s most anticipated new stallions for 2022 at Taylor Made Farm.

“We were thrilled for them,” Keene-land president Shannon Arvin said. KRA’s “Jun Park has been such a solid supporter, and it was really great to see them have such success.”

A year after being purchased, Knicks Go returned to Keeneland and gave the KRA its first Grade 1 victory, coasting by 5 1/2 lengths in the Breeders’ Futurity for trainer Ben Colebrook. He paid $142 as the longest shot on the board.

Knicks Go proved the win wasn’t a fluke when he finished second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs behind divisional Eclipse Award champion Game Winner. The Juvenile, however, began a 10-race losing streak over the next year for Knicks Go. The colt was moved to the care of trainer Brad Cox and since February 2020 has won 8 of 10 outings.

Knicks Go won the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile in track-record time at Keene-land, then captured the Pegasus World Cup Invitational in January 2021 at Gulfstream. After incurring losses in the Saudi Cup and the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, he tore through the second half of the season.

Following a confidence-boosting win in the Grade 3 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap, Knicks Go rolled by 4 1/2 lengths in the Grade 1 Whitney over Maxfield, Silver State, Swiss Skydiver, and By My Standards. A similar prep victory in the Grade 3 Lukas Classic prepped him for a front-running 2 3/4-length victory over Medina Spirit and Essential Quality in the BC Classic at Del Mar, missing the track record by 0.46 of a second.

“Extremely pleased with the result,” Jin Woo Lee of the Korea Racing Authority said following the Classic. “He had a bit of a rough time when he was 3, but he overcame the hard year and turned the corner, and he became a special horse.

“Winning at the Breeders’ Cup was the ultimate goal at the beginning of the year, and we achieved the win, so he can go off feeling good.”

Cox gave credit to Colebrook for developing the horse, who turned in some of the highest Beyer Speed Figures of 2021, with a 113 in the Cornhusker, a 112 in the BC Classic, and a 111 in the Whitney.

“He really is what a horse is supposed to be,” Cox said. “They are supposed to get faster and stronger as they get older. He’s a little bit of a throwback horse as far as accomplishing things early and then still being in training three years later.”

South Korea has built up a stallion roster based around prominent U.S. runners. The country’s current stud book boasts Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner and Eclipse Award champion Hansen; Preakness Stakes winner Shackleford; Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Bayern; and Grade 1 winners including the classic-placed runners Dortmund and Peace Rules.

The KRA has stated its intention to eventually stand high-profile runners campaigned in its colors. It has one such example in Mr. Crow, who gave the KRA its first victory at Saratoga in 2017, and whose multiple stakes placings included a runner-up effort in the Grade 1 Vosburgh the following year. Mr. Crow was imported back to Korea in early 2020, and his first foals arrived this year.

However, it was announced prior to the Breeders’ Cup that Knicks Go would remain stateside, with the KRA striking a deal with Taylor Made Farm in Nicholasville to stand the stallion in Kentucky for 2022.

“The KRA’s goal was to buy and race in the U.S. with an eye toward developing stallions,” KRA U.S. racing manager Jun Park said. “To have done this for such a short time and to already have a multiple Grade 1 winner like Knicks Go is very gratifying. We are excited to stand him at Taylor Made, and we look forward to his next career as a stallion.”

Before beginning that career, however, Knicks Go will make one more start, defending his victory in the Pegasus World Cup on Jan. 29. The advent of that rich race – which boasts prestige and Grade 1 status, although its purse has decreased from the staggering $16 million in its second running in 2018 to $3 million for this edition – has posed new challenges for stud farms transitioning horses off the track.

The Pegasus falls just more than two weeks before Northern Hemisphere breeding sheds open in early to mid-February, meaning stallion prospects making their final starts in that race face an accelerated time frame not only to settle into their new surroundings and the more sedate pace of farm life, but to be test bred and to learn the mechanics of breeding shed procedures.

Taylor Made was among the stallion farms to successfully manage this learning curve early in the history of the Pegasus. Two-time Horse of the Year California Chrome made his final start in the inaugural Pegasus in 2017 before shipping the next day to Kentucky, where he stood his first three seasons at Taylor Made.

Knicks Go got a chance to take in his future home when spending a brief training break following the Breeders’ Cup at Taylor Made’s stallion complex, from Nov. 11-17, participating in an open house for potential breeders. He then shipped back to Cox’s barn at Churchill Downs and will winter at the Fair Grounds to prepare for his final run.

Meanwhile, during the Keeneland November breeding stock sale, Korean interests purchased 28 mares for a combined $413,500 – some intended for export and mating with one of the country’s high-profile stallions, but some likely intended to remain in Kentucky for Knicks Go.

“This is an international sport, it’s not a domestic sport in any way,” said Tony Lacy, Keeneland’s vice president of sales. “The platform that we operate on, its very much global outreach. Our clients, it’s really important that they do well.

“We love seeing it. . . . We are farmers in the U.S. – we’re producing a commodity for our global market. This is the trading base. It’s very exciting to be a part of it.”

Juddmonte forging partnerships

Regally bred multiple graded stakes winner Tacitus will join Knicks Go as a new stallion at Taylor Made Farm for 2022, with partners including his breeder, Juddmonte Farms, which continues to forge partnerships with major entities to develop its young stallions.

Tacitus, by leading sire Tapit and out of Eclipse Award champion Close Hatches, was bred and raced by Juddmonte, earning more than $3.7 million. His graded stakes victories came in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial and Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby in early 2019, and the Grade 2 Suburban Stakes in 2020.

Tacitus placed in seven other graded stakes, including being moved to third in the 2019 Kentucky Derby via Maximum Security’s disqualification, and finishing second by a length to Sir Winston in the Belmont Stakes.

Tacitus will stand for a partnership of Juddmonte, Taylor Made, and Don Alberto – which has developed an outstanding broodmare band in Kentucky – for an introductory fee of $10,000, with a breeding right program also to be offered.

Juddmonte, whose founder, Prince Khalid bin Abdullah, died in January, stands five stallions at its Banstead Manor Stud in England, led by unbeaten two-time European Horse of the Year and leading sire Frankel and fellow European Horse of the Year and popular young sire Kingman. However, Juddmonte has stood its own stallions sparingly in Kentucky in recent years.

After the operation sold First Defence, the sire of Close Hatches, in 2016, the stalwart Mizzen Mast was alone in the stallion wing until champion Arrogate retired for the 2018 season. Arrogate died last year, after three seasons at stud. Mizzen Mast, now age 23, covered just 10 mares this year, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred. He has been pensioned ahead of the 2022 season.

Instead of standing stallions at its own operation, Juddmonte has forged partnerships with other operations and placed young stallions at various farms. Noble Mission, a champion full brother to Frankel, retired to Lane’s End Farm, with Juddmonte retaining an interest, for the 2015 season. The sire of multiple Grade 1 winner Code of Honor, Noble Mission moved to Japan for the 2021 season.

Eclipse Award champion Flintshire retired for the 2017 season to Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm for the partnership of that operation, Juddmonte, China Horse Club, and SF Bloodstock. Recently, Haras de Montaigu purchased 50 percent of the stallion, sire of recent graded stakes winner Verbal, and will stand him in France.