McKnight wins while he waits for Woodbine opener
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A handful of trainers who otherwise would have been back home racing at Woodbine by this time of year have sent strings to Kentucky to compete at the Churchill Downs spring meet, including Norm McKnight, who already has sent out two winners from three starts.
“We’ve been waiting for something good to happen back home, and we keep getting pushed back,” McKnight said Monday.
Woodbine in suburban Toronto has yet to run a race in 2021, owing to postponements stemming from stay-at-home orders by the Ontario government due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. McKnight said the latest projection for the resumption of racing at Woodbine is sometime around June 11. The meet was supposed to start April 17.
“It was a last-minute decision to send 15 horses to Churchill after we were finished at Oaklawn Park,” where racing ended May 1, said McKnight. “We’ve already had a couple claimed.”
Other trainers normally based at Woodbine who are racing at Churchill include Barbara Minshall (1 for 2), Roger Attfield (0 for 3), and Josie Carroll (0 for 2). All of them typically stop in April at Keeneland on their way home from their southern winter bases, but they’re gone from here after the Kentucky Derby has been run. Several other Canadian trainers also have either left horses in Florida to run at Gulfstream Park or sent some to Arlington Park or Delaware Park.
McKnight, 65, said Churchill management was willing to accommodate his needs under these unusual circumstances and wants to run as often as possible. Through the first couple of weeks at a meet that runs through June 26, Churchill has had difficulty filling some of its races, especially in certain categories on dirt.
“I want to support their meet,” said McKnight, whose winners here were Fay Dan ($11.60) on Saturday and Pickford ($6.80) on Sunday. “Obviously we’d all prefer to be running at Woodbine, and it’s my personal opinion that these delays are the result of overkill by the government. I don’t know what the agenda is.”
One twilight allowance
Live action resumes Thursday at Churchill with an eight-race card that gets underway at 5 p.m. Eastern. The only allowance of the twilight program, race 7, is scheduled for the grass, and after a weekend of rain cleared out of this region Sunday night, all turf racing can be expected to proceed as scheduled amid dry conditions, at least through Saturday.
The nominal Thursday feature is a $102,000, first-level race that drew an oversubscribed lineup of 3-year-olds and upward going 1 1/16 miles, although four of the 13 entries are main track-only designates who would scratch if the weather forecast holds. Belichick, runner-up in the prestigious Queen’s Plate and winner of the Breeders’ Stakes for Josie Carroll, is the 2-1 morning-line favorite, making his first start in nearly six months. Basquiat, a Chad Brown trainee also returning from a layoff of similar length, is among the chief opposition.
The feature is part of the 20-cent Derby City 6, a jackpot pick-six wager offering a carryover of $10,206 from Sunday.
The coming weekend at Churchill will be highlighted by the Grade 3 Louisville for older horses going 1 1/2 miles on turf. The next major stakes date here is May 29, when six $150,000 races are run as preps for the closing-day Stephen Foster card.
Every Thursday at the meet will be a twilight card, with the last of eight races going at 8:23. The next night card is May 22.
◗ Trainer Tommy Drury enjoyed a memorable weekend not only by winning his first-ever Churchill stakes race with Lady Edith ($51.60) in the $108,075 Mamzelle on Saturday, but also by Sprawl ($6.20) splashing home a 7 1/4-length winner Sunday in a $104,000 allowance. Drury has his stable star, Art Collector, back in steady training at the Skylight training center just east of Louisville.
◗ Swiss Skydiver, the 2020 Preakness winner, posted a bullet half-mile work in 46.80 seconds Saturday at Churchill in her first breeze since finishing third in the April 17 Apple Blossom at Oaklawn.