Brad Cox watched Cyberknife cool out from his half-mile breeze Sept. 10 at Churchill Downs and pondered what would be next for Al Gold's 3-year-old son of Gun Runner.
“What am I going to do with this horse if I don't run him?” Cox asked that day. “There are not a lot of options; really none left against straight 3-year-olds.”
Cox and Gold, who races Cyberknife in the black and gold colors of his Gold Square, decided on Saturday's $1 million betPARX Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing. Cyberknife, the 3-1 second choice for the 1 1/8-mile Pennsylvania Derby, bids for his third Grade 1 victory of 2022 Saturday. He finished second behind Epicenter last time out in the Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course.
Cyberknife breezed a half in :49 Sept. 10, and another 5 furlongs in 1:01.20 last Saturday at Churchill.
“He really is doing well,” Cox said. “Once again, he's in this race because of how well he's doing. I didn't really think anything about this until last week, and I spoke to Al Gold about it and we thought he deserved it.
“He's a Grade 1 horse and it's a Grade 1 race. And look, I'm excited about matching up with Taiba. He's a very good horse, a Grade 1 winner in his own right. There are some other very good horses in the race. It looks like a really good group of horses.”
Cyberknife, who arrived in the Philadelphia area Tuesday and trained on the main track Wednesday morning, will make his eighth start of 2022 in the Pennsylvania Derby. He brings four wins and a bankroll of $1,751,520 this year, tops among the Derby field.
Cyberknife started his sophomore campaign with a sixth in the Grade 3 Lecomte in late January at Fair Grounds. He won the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby in early April at Oaklawn, finished 18th in the Kentucky Derby in May, won the Grade 3 Matt Winn in mid-June at Churchill and the Grade 1 Haskell Stakes in late July at Monmouth Park.
“That's exactly right,” Cox said when Cyberknife's 2022 campaign was called likened to a throwback.
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