Mercante warming to best form as temperatures cool
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Some people thrive in the heat, some wilt, and the same holds for racehorses, and cool wether couldn’t come quickly enough this year for the 6-year-old gelding Mercante.
Mercante had lost nine races in a row and was coming off two decidedly subpar showings when he went wire to wire Saturday at Churchill Downs in the Grade 3, $300,000 River City Stakes. Mercante turned away Kupuna and pulled clear late to a half-length win, his 97 Beyer Speed Figure approaching the best numbers of his career, from early in 2025.
“It was really good to see him back on form,” said Brian Knippenberg, who trains Mercante for the horse’s breeder, Carl Pollard. “He just struggled with the heat all summer; allergies and hives and this and that. I had a lot of confidence that once it cooled off he’d be himself, because he was tearing down the barn again.”
Mercante’s breakout race came in the 2025 Kentucky Cup Classic over Turfway’s Tapeta surface. He got a 101 Beyer there and ran right back to it finishing a good second in the Grade 1 Turf Classic at Churchill six weeks later. Mercante finished a troubled second in this year’s renewal of the Kentucky Cup Classic, and rather than give Mercante the winter off, as they did a year ago, Knippenberg and Pollard plan to keep Mercante in training and run him through Turfway’s series of route races for older horses. That series culminates in the Kentucky Cup Classic in late March – before the weather turns too warm.
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