Paynter

Four-time Grade I winner and one of the favorites for 2021 Horse of the Year Knicks Go (Paynter--Kosmo's Buddy, by Outflanker) will retire to Taylor Made Stallions at the conclusion of his racing career, the farm announced Monday. Campaigned by Korea Racing Authority, Knicks Go is currently the top-ranked older horse on the NTRA Thoroughbred Poll as he prepares for his next start in the $6-million GI Breeders' Cup Classic at Del Mar Nov. 6. A stud fee will be announced after the Breeders' Cup. "The KRA's goal was to...

Going...going... gone. Leading older horse Knicks Go (Paynter), as expected, punched his ticket to the GI Breeders' Cup Classic with a facile victory in Saturday's GIII Lukas Classic S. at Churchill Downs. The overwhelming 1-9 favorite took his usual spot on the front end and led the field of six through very manageable fractions of :23.53 and :47.27. Joel Rosario hit the gas entering the far turn, and Knicks Go responded in spades. He passed the quarter pole as the one to catch, cornered for home in the four path...

Coming off a dominant win in the GI Whitney S., Horse of the Year contender Knicks Go (Paynter) will make his next start in the Oct. 2 GIII Lukas Classic at Churchill Downs, trainer Brad Cox confirmed Thursday. Knicks Go will be taking a step back in class in the $400,000 race, but Cox has taken that route before. Knicks Go warmed up for the Whitney with a 10 1/4-length romp in the GIII Prairie Meadows Cornhusker H. at Prairie Meadows. "It's a mile-and-an-eighth race and he'll be coming right...

Korea Racing Authority's even-money favorite Knicks Go (Paynter) ran off from a strong field in Saturday's GI Whitney S. to earn an automatic spot in the starting gate for the GI Breeders' Cup Classic and reassert himself at the top of the handicap division. Last seen posting a 10 1/4-length bounce-back victory in the GIII Cornhusker H. July 2 after settling for fourth at odds-on in the GI Metropolitan H., the grey opened up some five or six lengths on his competition down the Saratoga backside through a half in...

Knicks Go (Paynter), a razor-sharp winner of the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile Nov. 7 and GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational S. Jan. 23, got back on track in a big way with a front-running, tour-de-force victory in Friday evening's GIII Prairie Meadows Cornhusker H. Fourth in both the $20-million Saudi Cup Feb. 20 and GI Hill 'n' Dale Metropolitan H. June 5, the 3-5 favorite cleared the field heading into the clubhouse turn in this return to his preferred two-turn trip. The 2018 GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity hero carved...

Presented virtually the week of Feb. 22, the fourth annual Renaissance Awards, a collaborative effort between the Maryland Horse Breeders Association, Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association and Maryland Jockey Club, was highlighted by Knicks Go (Paynter) earning the title of Maryland Horse of the Year and champion older horse for the 2020 season. Owned by Korea Racing Authority and trained by Brad H. Cox, the grey capped off an impressive year with a victory in the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile at Keeneland in November. He is only the fifth Maryland-bred...

Knicks Go (Paynter) and Charlatan (Speightstown), a pair of major forces headlining the American racing scene in 2020, take on 12 others in Saturday's $20-million Saudi World Cup at King Abdulaziz Racecourse outside Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Both Grade I winners in their latest starts, the pair represent two of America's leading trainers, Brad Cox, who took home his first Eclipse Award last season, and Bob Baffert, a 2020 finalist who had previously annexed four training titles. Knicks Go, winner of the 2018 GI Breeders' Futurity S. while under the care...

This Saturday, Calumet Farm looks to pull off a bit of an upset in the GII Risen Star with their homebred Santa Cruiser (Dialed In), who broke his maiden last November and ran fourth in his most recent start in the GIII Lecomte S.    Santa Cruiser may go off as one of the longer shots on the board, but if he were to win, it wouldn't be the farm's first upset in the same race. Three years ago, Calumet's homebred Bravazo (Awesome Again-Tiz O'Gold, by Cee's Tizzy) won the...

Today we come to a final group of stallions whose development we're treating separately, before wrapping up our series with a look at those survivors who made it across the highwire and can be grouped together as "Established Sires." (After which we'll also be taking a tour of regional stallions.) In the last couple of instalments, we've observed the Kentucky talent pool in each intake rapidly drying up, so that our review of third- and fourth-crop options respectively encompassed 18 and just six stallions. And we are left with a...

So this dismal year slinks under our resentful glare towards the back gate, like an uninvited guest who has wrecked a party by outrageous behavior. Soon, perhaps, there will be a cheerful ringing of the doorbell and we can welcome one to revive spirits around the world. In the meantime, somehow, the Thoroughbred is managing to hold together the strands linking all our yesterdays and whatever tomorrow may bring. I've often remarked, during recent months, that horsemen will be well served by the patient perspectives they require even at the...

It's a tough game, selling nominations; and, except for those sparkly new stallions, getting tougher all the time. So we should have every sympathy with the farms trying to drum up custom. True, WinStar doesn't hold back in introducing Paynter on his homepage as "one of the most popular and courageous runners in racing history." But if that's a pretty heady claim, even for a horse whose recovery from desperate illness so captured the hearts of the racing public, then the son of Awesome Again has certainly moved the conversation...

4th-Gulfstream, $38,000, Msw, 4-12, 3yo/up, f/m, 6f, 1:11.78, ft. SARATOGA AFFAIR (f, 3, Paynter--Mallory Street {SP, $111,837}, by Street Sense) cost three times as much as the next-priciest Paynter juvenile last term when she brought $450,000 at OBSAPR off a strong :10 flat breeze. She was given a 7-2 chance off an upbeat-looking worktab at Palm Meadows, and was spotting most of her well-bred foes a race or two worth of experience. Off towards the back of the pack, the bay was scrubbed on to sit midpack among a strung-out...