Knicks Go

Knicks Go (foaled January 29, 2016) is a retired Thoroughbred racehorse who was the 2021 American Horse of the Year after winning five of seven starts, including the Breeders' Cup Classic, Whitney Stakes and Pegasus World Cup. The year before he won the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. He is the sixth horse to win two different Breeders' Cup races.

His other wins include the Breeders' Futurity as a two-year-old in 2018, after which he finished second in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

After finishing second in the 2022 Pegasus World Cup, Knicks Go was retired to stud at Taylor Made Farm in Nicholasville, Kentucky with an initial stud fee of $30,000.

Background

Knicks Go is a gray horse who was bred by Angie Moore and her daughter Sabrina at GreenMount Farm in Reisterstown, Maryland. He is from the second crop of Paynter, who won the Haskell Invitational, then received widespread social media attention during his battle against a near-fatal case of colitis and laminitis. Knicks Go was produced by Kosmo's Buddy, a stakes-winning daughter of Outflanker who was claimed by the Moores for $40,000 near the end of a 37-race career.

Knicks Go was sold as a weanling for $40,000 at the 2016 Keeneland November sale to Northface Bloodstock. He was resold as a yearling at the Keeneland September 2017 sale for $87,000 to the Korea Racing Authority. He was originally trained by Ben Colebrook and was transferred to the stable of Brad Cox at the end of 2019.

The colt was named for the K-nicks breeding system used by the Korea Racing Authority (KRA), with the "K" standing for Korea and nicks referring to the above average success of certain sires when bred to mares from certain other sire lines. "If you can call him 'K-Nicks Go', that would be great", said Jun Park, a racing manager of the KRA. "But it really doesn't matter. Everybody knows him as 'Nicks Go'."

Racing career

2018: two-year-old campaign

Knicks Go made his first start on July 4, 2018, in a maiden special weight at Ellis Park over a distance of five furlongs. He took the early lead and won easily by lengths despite ducking out when shown the whip near the wire. He then finished fifth in the Sanford Stakes on July 21 and third in the Arlington-Washington Futurity on September 8.

On October 6, Knicks Go went off as a 70-1 longshot in his first start at the Grade I level in the Breeders' Futurity at Keeneland. He went to the early lead and set solid fractions of 23.67 seconds for the first quarter and 47.59 for the half. Ahead by a length around the final turn, he steadily opened his lead down the stretch to win by lengths over Signalman. It was the first Grade I win for his trainer Ben Colebrook, who felt that the other jockeys had allowed Knicks Go to steal the race. "They didn't give him any respect, and he got out there and just got to gallop," he said. "I could see (Knicks Go) on the backside, his ears were just going. I could tell he was going to run big. But I didn't think he was going to run that big. It was just amazing."

The win earned Knicks Go an automatic berth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, held at Churchill Downs on November 2. The favorites were Game Winner, who had won the American Pharoah Stakes in his previous start, and Complexity, who had won the Champagne Stakes. Knicks Go was again a longshot, this time at odds of 40-1. He hopped at the start but quickly moved up to track the pace set by Complexity while racing three-wide around the first turn. Around the second turn, he started to make up ground and took the lead turning into the stretch. However, he tired in the final furlong and started to drift wide. He still finished second to Game Winner, beaten by lengths, with Signalman in third. "That was a thrill," said Colebrook. "Turning for home, I thought we might get there, but ame Winner
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