Knicks Go

De Meric's Odyssey Brings Him 'Home' To Horses

The island is still there, nearly 50 years later, which would have surprised Nick de Meric at the time. He'd have assumed that there could be nothing left by now. "Because they were basically mining it off the map," he recalls. "It was made of iron ore. So they had these massive Euclid trucks, wheels high as a building. And all these men on shift work, living in long huts. Not quite a prison environment, but it was all-male, tropical heat, nothing to do but drink beer and play cards....

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Knicks Go Yearling Brings Moore Full Circle at Keeneland January

Sabrina Moore's GreenMount Farm will offer its final consignment during next week's Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale and, fittingly, the consignment's three offerings kick off with a short yearling from the first crop of the champion who put the Maryland farm on the map, Knicks Go. "It's a little bittersweet that this is going to be my last consignment," Moore admitted. "But it will kind of come full circle, hopefully." Moore and her mother Angie co-bred Knicks Go and sold the son of the late Paynter for $40,000...

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Value Sires For 2024, Part 4: Into The Teens

Today we'll consider some of the sires standing between $10,001 and $19,999. For a long time, I called this the Lookin At Lucky zone. But don't worry, we won't be deploring his neglect yet again: he's staying in Chile, where they evidently appreciate him rather more. Plenty of horses in this bracket have recently relinquished their brief window of commercial opportunity, and are now hanging around to discover whether they might join the very small group whose first runners generate a fresh vogue. Even with the newcomers out of the...

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Another Chapter in Taylor Made's Breeders' Cup Story

Celebrating 40 Years of the Breeders' Cup Can you imagine being a horse racing-crazy kid with a ringside seat to the creation of the Breeders' Cup? Mark Taylor can, because he was. Fast forward more than four decades and now he is president and CEO of the Central Kentucky farm that is believed to have raised and/or sold more Breeders' Cup winners than any other. There's also the matter of having stood the Breeders' Cup winner who currently holds the record for siring the most Breeders' Cup winners in turn....

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Not This Time Bumped Up To $150K at Taylor Made for 2024

Not This Time (Giant's Causeway), whose three-time Grade I-winning son Up To the Mark is a leading candidate for the GI Breeders' Cup Turf and Horse of the Year honors, will stand the 2024 breeding season for a fee of $150,000, stands-and-nurses terms, at Taylor Made Stallions. Not This Time stood the 2023 season for $135,000. The sire of 2022 champion 3-year-old male Epicenter, Not This Time has gone from strength to strength this term, and sits in eighth position on the general sire list with better than $10.4 million...

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Maryland Stallion Outflanker Dies

Maryland stallion Outflanker (Danzig--Lassie's Lady, by Alydar) was euthanized due to complications of old age, Shamrock Farm announced on its Facebook page Tuesday. He was 29. The bay stallion sired three graded winners, 22 stakes winners and his progeny have earned over $30 million. He is the broodmare sire of 2021 Horse of the Year Knicks Go (Paynter).

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Unified Filly Runs Away with Ellis Park Maiden

6th-Ellis, $70,000, Msw, 7-31, 2yo, f, 6f, 1:11.17, ft, 7 3/4 lengths. CONDON CANDY (f, 2, Unified--Sweetness 'n Light, by Distorted Humor) broke well enough to go on and set the pace from two off the rail, drawing away from her rivals at the three furlong marker. Widening her advantage while being kept to her task, Condon Candy made the margin 7 3/4 lengths over Regal Humor (Kantharos), who would come on from midpack to claim second after bouncing off runners at the break. A half-sister to Stormy Sky (Sky...

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Bob Baffert: 'Country Grammer Will Get Saudi Cup Job Done If Taiba Doesn't'

Bob Baffert has issued an upbeat bulletin on his Saudi Cup contenders and said that, if for whatever reason his short-priced favourite Taiba (Gun Runner) does not get the job done, then stablemate and last year's runner-up Country Grammer (Tonalist) should be there to pick up the pieces in the world's richest race on Saturday.  The Saudi Cup is one of the only big dirt races that has eluded Baffert and, along with Country Grammer, the American handler has sent out Charlatan to fill the runner-up spot to Mishriff (Ire)...

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Unique Partnership of Breeders Brings Mind Control to New York

Tenacious to the end, Red Oak Stable and Madaket Stable's Mind Control (Stay Thirsty) closed out his career with a win in the 2022 GI Cigar Mile, his third Grade I win and his 11th black-type victory. In a remarkable 29 starts over five years, Mind Control amassed total winnings of $2,185,834. In that race, as in all of Mind Control's stakes wins, he beat an impressive field of competitors, including favored Zandon, White Abarrio, and Get Her Number. Big numbers, indeed. Numbers, as it turns out, will also be...

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Knicks Go Ready For Sophomore Season at Taylor Made

After a debut season at Taylor Made during which he covered a hefty book of better than 150 mares, Horse of the Year and five-time Grade I winner Knicks Go (Paynter) is champing at the bit to get back to work as breeding sheds open their doors across Central Kentucky. The Korea Racing Authority raced the gray to 10 victories over the course of four-plus seasons and earnings north of $9.2 million, and his first year at Taylor Made has led to even greater optimism for his second. The KRA's...

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Book Review: Secretariat's Offspring Agonistes

A stroll down the 500 block of East Maxwell Street in Lexington, Kentucky brings you to the awninged door of Black Swan Books. If your pursuits are less catholic, then Mike Courtney's seemingly endless maze of heaving shelves can accommodate even the most scrupulous bibliophile of rare Kentuckiana and equine sport culture. Say, you're looking for a past volume on the two-time Horse of the Year Secretariat, then copious choices await. More recent works like William Nack's Secretariat: The Making of a Champion (2002) and Lawrence Scanlan's The Horse That...

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First Foal For Taylor Made's Knicks Go

Taylor Made Stallions' Horse of the Year Knicks Go (Paynter), a five-time Grade I winner and two-time Breeders' Cup winner, sired his first reported foal when a filly bred by Alex and Kendra Penn was born on Thursday evening, Jan. 12. Her dam Seeking a Star (Pioneerof the Nile) is a half-sister to 2-year-old SW Miss Interpret (Street Sense), and out of a half-sister to MGISW Paulassilverlining (Ghostzapper), the dam of Artorius (Arrogate), winner of the 2022 Curlin S. at Saratoga. Victorious in the GI Breeders' Futurity at two, Knicks...

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