McKnight, Smart Spree enjoying big meet

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The 7-year-old sprinter Smart Spree has had a remarkable season at Oaklawn Park, and his trainer Norm McKnight hasn’t done badly himself. On Saturday, Smart Spree will try to put the icing on McKnight’s first Oaklawn season as a top contender in the Grade 3, $400,000 Count Fleet Handicap.

McKnight topped Mark Casse in the Woodbine trainer standings last year after finishing second to him in 2016. He brought 24 horses to Oaklawn this winter, and coming into the Thursday card was seventh in the standings with a 16-for-75 record and a 21 percent win average.

Smart Spree has always been quick, but since 2015 has bounced between the optional allowance and claiming ranks. He won his final start at Woodbine in December for a claiming tag of $23,500.

At Oaklawn, he has rattled off three dominating victories, over $30,000 starter company, $40,000 starters, and high-level money-allowance rivals. He is not to be taken lightly in the Count Fleet.

“It’s a little bit of a reach, but the way I look at it, he’s doing really well right now,” McKnight said. “He seems to just love this surface. His wins look a little freakish.”

McKnight has discovered several other of his horses prefer a dirt main track to the Tapeta surface at Woodbine and has applied for eight to 10 stalls at Churchill Downs for the spring meet. His main string will be at Woodbine.

This is Smart Spree’s second tour with McKnight, who claimed him for $40,000 in August 2015 and then lost him for $19,000 while coming back from a layoff in May 2016. He returned the favor, re-claiming Smart Spree for $25,000 out of his first start of 2017.

“One of the reasons I took him back was because we had Oaklawn in the back of our minds,” McKnight said. “He’d only had one prior race on dirt. He finished fourth as a maiden on dirt in the Prince of Wales at Fort Erie.”

McKnight came up the hard way. He ran away from home at age 16 and worked with Standardbreds in Ontario. He got his provisional driver’s license at a young age and began driving in races.

In 1992, he lost his Standardbred stable in a barn fire at Mohawk Raceway.

“It was just a sequence of circumstances that led me to Thoroughbreds,” he said.

This spring will be the first time McKnight operates a split stable.

“I’m a very hands-on guy and it will be the first time I’ve ever had any of my horses away from me,” McKnight said. “If everything goes well, then I’ll probably be looking for another U.S. racetrack after that.”