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BC Sprint Winner Aloha West Brings Catalano Back Into National Spotlight

One of the most popular victories of the Breeders' Cup came in the $2 million Grade 1 Sprint won by the Wayne Catalano-trained 4-year-old Aloha West, who never even race until this past Feb. 7. But he bested a field that included top sprinters Jackie's Warrior, Dr. Schivel, Following Sea, Forenze Firenze Fire, C Z Rocket, and Special Reserve at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club in Del Mar, Calif.

Not that it was easy. Aloha West needed every inch of the Sprint's six furlongs to win by a tight nose in nailing California-based Dr. Schivel, who took command in midstretch as 1-2 favorite Jackie's Warrior faded. It was Aloha West's first stakes victory in only his second graded-stakes start, having finished second to Special Reserve in Keeneland's G2 Phoenix.

“I liked the bob at the end when they put my number up,” Catalano said. “But boy was it a tough one.”

Catalano has trained since 1983 and at 2,931 wins through Saturday is getting close to the 3,000-plus he won as a jockey, including 349 victories in 1977. Still, his greater success has been as a trainer.

“Wayne has just done an incredible job developing this colt,” said Aron Wellman, founder and president of the Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners syndicate that won its first Breeders' Cup race. “He only ran for the first time in February this year as a 4-year-old, and (nine) months later he's a Breeders' Cup Sprint champion. That takes master horsemanship to be able to accomplish something that monumental.

“But Wayne told me two weeks ago — and this man has had his hands on some pretty serious horse flesh in his day — that 'this might be the best horse I've ever had my hands on.' The way he's managed and developed this horse is clearly brilliant. To do what he did today is just magical.”

Eclipse Thoroughbreds bought Aloha West privately off Catalano's long-time clients Gary and Mary West after the Hard Spun colt finished fifth in an Oaklawn allowance race in his second start.

“I was talking to Wayne shortly thereafter about a horse I was sending him and I said, 'What about that horse Aloha West? That horse that ran sneaky good,'” Wellman recalled. “And he said, 'That horse can run.' I had bought some horses off the Wests in the past that had similar profiles because their program is predominantly geared toward the classics. This is a horse that had missed his 2- and 3-year-old season. With the kind of volume that they got, he's the kind of horse that they need to turn over to make sense of their operation. So Wayne took the lead, we cut a deal and the rest is history.”

It was the Louisville-based Catalano's fourth Breeders' Cup victory and first since Stephanie's Kitten took the Juvenile Fillies Turf in 2011.

“Right now is a good time to win a race like this,” Catalano said. “We're a little low on horses. We've been around a long, long time, and it's not easy. I've reinvented myself so many times — 50 years and counting. I just want to settle down and have a handful of nice horses in one spot and enjoy the rest of my life with the grandkids.”

Overall, four Kentucky-based trainers won five of the 14 Breeders' Cup races: Catalano (Aloha West, Sprint), Brad Cox (Knicks Go, Classic), Steve Asmussen (Echo Zulu, Juvenile Fillies), and the Keeneland-based Wesley Ward (Golden Pal, Turf Sprint, and Twilight Gleaming, Juvenile Turf Sprint.

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Knicks Go Gives Kentucky Bred Brad Cox Another Win On Racing’s Biggest Stage

A year ago, Brad Cox won a record-tying four Breeders' Cup races at Keeneland. While he came three victories shy of that total this year, Cox's triumph came in North America's richest race as the reigning Eclipse Award-winning training continued to add to his fast-growing resume.

That gray blur Saturday at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club in Del Mar, Calif., was the Cox-trained Knicks Go carrying his dazzling speed to a 2 3/4-length victory over Kentucky Derby first-place finisher Medina Spirit in the $6 million Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Classic.

“It means a lot to show up on this stage at the Breeders' Cup; it's the world's stage,” said Cox, a graduate of Iroquois High School in Louisville's South End who grew up a couple of furlongs from Churchill Downs' backstretch. “We saw that this week with so many Euros and horses from Japan and now an ownership based out of Korea with an American horse winning the Classic.

“There are a lot of things we want to accomplish at the Derby, the Saudi Cup, Dubai World Cup, and this was one was very, very high on our list of races we wanted to win. We capped it off, but we would like to win it again as well.”

Cox also finished third in the Classic with Essential Quality, the Belmont and Travers Stakes winner who was making his last start before going to stud at owner Godolphin's Jonabell Farm in Lexington.

Knicks Go, running 1 1/4 miles for the first time, came home the final quarter-mile in a sensational :24.29 to complete matters in 1:59.57, not far off Candy Ride's 1:59.11 in 2003.

“He just took off again,” said jockey Joel Rosario. “He just like keeps going with the speed he has, and at the mile and a quarter he was amazing.”

The ascent of Cox — a multiple-times leading trainer at Churchill Downs, Keeneland, and Ellis Park— to the top ranks of horse racing also is amazing.

Since Monomoy Girl became his first Grade 1 winner and first champion in 2018, Cox has powered to eight Breeders' Cup victories to put him in a tie for ninth all-time with Britain's Sir Michael Stoute and Steve Asmussen. D. Wayne Lukas leads the way with 20, followed by Bob Baffert (18), Chad Brown (15), Aidan O'Brien (13), Todd Pletcher (12), Bill Mott (10), and Richard Mandella and Shug McGaughey (nine).

Knicks Go was foaled in Maryland, is owned by the Korea Racing Authority and has raced all over America as well as Saudi Arabia, with Del Mar being his 14th racetrack. At $8,673,135, he has paid back the KRA's $87,000 tenfold.

But his racing career began with a victory at Ellis Park on July 4, 2018. Then trained by Lexington-based Ben Colebrook, Knicks Go also won Keeneland's G1 Claiborne Breeders' Futurity at 70-1 and took second at 40-1 odds in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs.

Knicks Go was sent to Cox after a 3-year-old season that included finishing second by a half-length to Gray Magician in the 2019 Ellis Park Derby. He sped to a 3-for-3 record for his new barn at age 4, capped by a romp in the $1 million Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, part of Cox's Cup quartet at Keeneland. In seven 2021 races at seven tracks, he has lost only twice, those being the Metropolitan Mile and Saudi Cup with one-turn configurations.

If Knicks Go didn't race at Ellis Park this year, he certainly was a visiting dignitary, with Cox sending him to the Pea Patch to train under the oversight of assistant trainer Jorje Abrego between a 10 1/4-length win in Iowa's G3 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker and a 4 1/2-length tour de force in Saratoga's prestigious Whitney. As with Iowa, Cox similarly took a path of lesser resistance before the Breeders' Cup by running Knicks Go in Churchill Downs' G3 Lukas Classic.

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Cox now has trained 10 different Grade 1-winning horses, with Knicks Go virtually assured of being his fifth to win at least one championship as the overwhelming favorite to be voted Horse of the Year and top older male. Essential Quality, last year's 2-year-old champion, makes a strong case as leading 3-year-old, though Medina Spirit will have a lot of support as well.

Cox, who also finished second in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies with Ellis Park maiden and Keeneland's G1 Darley Alcibiades winner JuJu's Map, is well-poised to repeat as Eclipse Award-winning trainer. His barn's earnings lead North America at $29.18 million while the Classic was Cox's 229th win of the year, ranking No. 4. In addition to Essential Quality's Belmont Stakes being his first Triple Crown victory, Cox will also become the Kentucky Derby-winning trainer with Mandaloun should Medina Spirit be disqualified for a medication infraction.

Knicks Go could follow the path of Gun Runner, the Asmussen-trained 2017 Classic winner the first time the Breeders' Cup was at Del Mar, and race one more time in the Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla. Knicks Go, who won the Pegasus in January to start his season, ultimately will head to Taylor Made Farm in Jessamine County, Ky., to begin a stallion career.

“I think he's got everything it takes to be a stallion,” Cox said. “He was a Grade 1 winner at 2, and obviously Ben Colebrook was responsible for that. He did a great job with him. He was a Grade 1 winner at 4, 5. He's traveled around the world and he's a very tough, durable horse. He's extremely sound. And I think we're in a day and age where horses go to stud so early, and he's a little bit of a throwback horse in that he's raced at 4 and 5 and raced as much as he has. So very proud of what he has accomplished this year and ending last year and hopefully he'll pass it on as a stallion.”

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Essential Quality to Stand for $75,000

Essential Quality (Tapit–Delightful Quality, by Elusive Quality), last year's champion 2-year-old and winner of this year's GI Belmont S. and GI Runhappy Travers S., will begin his stud career next year at a fee of $75,000, Darley in America announced Sunday. Essential Quality concluded his racing career with a third-place effort in Saturday's GI Longines Breeders' Cup Classic.

“His body of work is just tremendous: an Eclipse champion at two, a Classic winner at three, a son of Tapit with a fantastic female family,” said Darley Sales Manager Darren Fox. “He's already generated quite a lot of interest and we couldn't be more excited about him retiring to Jonabell Farm.”

Essential Quality won eight of 10 starts, including last year's GI TVG Breeders' Cup Juvenile and GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity, as well as this year's GII Jim Dandy S. and GII Toyota Blue Grass S. He retires with earnings of $4,755,144.

Also retiring to Jonabell in 2022 is Grade I winner Maxfield (Street Sense–Velvety, by Bernardini), who will stand for $40,000. The 4-year-old is expected to make his final career start in the Nov. 26 GI Clark H. at Churchill Downs.

Winner of the 2019 GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity, Maxfield has won this year's GII Alysheba S. and GII Stephen Foster S. and is coming off runner-up efforts in the GI Whitney S. and GI Woodward S.

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2021 Longines/IFHA International Award of Merit Awarded To Niarchos Family

The Niarchos family received the 2021 Longines and IFHA International Award of Merit, which recognizes distinguished horsemen and horsewomen for lifelong contributions to Thoroughbred racing, at a ceremony Friday, Nov. 5, in Del Mar during Breeders' Cup World Championships weekend.

Maria Niarchos-Gouazé accepted the award on behalf of the family, and representatives from both Longines and the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA), as well as the Breeders' Cup and The Jockey Club, took part in the celebration.

“On behalf of my brothers and myself, I would like to thank Longines, the IFHA, the Breeders' Cup, and The Jockey Club for this great honor,” said Niarchos-Gouazé. “I would also like to thank all of our horses, the jockeys who mainly found the winning post, our trainers, our veterinarians and farriers, and all of the individuals who have worked on the studs and in our trainers' yards.

“In particular, I would like to thank my home team, Alan Cooper and Karen Clark, who have been with us since inception, for their dedication and loyalty, and also Jamie McCalmont and Bill Oppenheim, and those who have worked alongside them. Lastly, and the most deserving of all, I would like to thank my father, Stavros, for his vision.”

As the Official Partner and Official Watch of the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA), Swiss watchmaker Longines and the IFHA conjointly created the International Award of Merit in 2013 in order to honor public figures for their outstanding contribution to the world of horse racing. Longines is also an Official Partner, the Official Timekeeper, and the Official Watch of the Breeders' Cup, as well as the title sponsor for this year's Breeders' Cup Classic, Turf, and Distaff.

“We are delighted to celebrate tonight the Niarchos family, whose strong commitment and dedication to Thoroughbred racing have been rewarded by so many remarkable successes over the years,” said Matthieu Baumgartner, Longines Vice President Marketing. “The history of the family proves that equestrian sport is one of passion, a passion that Longines has been sharing for a century and a half. Today, we are the partner of some of the major international institutions, including the IFHA, and provide our timekeeping expertise to prestigious events all around the world in the disciplines show jumping, dressage, eventing, and of course, horse racing.”

Previous winners of the International Award of Merit include John Messara, the owner and chairman of Arrowfield Stud in Australia; the Magnier family and trainer Aidan O'Brien, the driving forces behind Coolmore and the Ballydoyle Racing Stable in Ireland; Yutaka Take, legendary Japanese jockey; the Romanet family, long renowned leaders in both the French and international world of horseracing; Jim Bolger, leading Irish trainer, owner, and breeder; Alec Head, past champion trainer and patriarch of prominent stud farm Haras du Quesnay; Seth Hancock of historic Claiborne Farm in America; and the late Marcel Zarour Atanacio, former chairman of the South American organization for the promotion of Thoroughbreds (OSAF).

“I would like to congratulate the Niarchos family as this year's recipient of the Longines and IFHA International Award of Merit,” said IFHA Chair Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges. “Reflecting upon the significance and the values associated with this award, I am struck by the level of success achieved by the Niarchos family in nearly every corner of the globe, spanning multiple generations.

“On racetrack achievement alone, the Niarchos family would be worthy recipients of this Award, but their steadfast support of our industry is what sets them apart. Their unwavering partnership and development of international racing and breeding is a special feat, and it must be celebrated.”

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The late Stavros Niarchos served as a Greek naval officer in World War II and made his fortune in the shipping business. He first became involved with Thoroughbred racing in the 1950s, took a break, and returned in full force in the 1970s. His first major winner was Pipe of Peace, who won the 1956 Middle Park Stakes.

His daughter Maria took over the family's Thoroughbred business after his death in 1996, and Alan Cooper serves as the family's racing manager. More than 125 Group or Grade 1 winners have been bred and/or campaigned under their banner, and they have been long-time supporters of the Breeders' Cup.

The Niarchos family has won seven Breeders' Cup races with six homebred colts and fillies. Six of those victories have come in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Mile: Miesque (1987, 1988), Spinning World (1997), Domedriver (2002), Six Perfections (2003), and Karakontie (2014). Additionally, Main Sequence won the G1 Longines Breeders' Cup Turf in 2014. This record as an owner-breeder at the Breeders' Cup makes the Niarchos family one of the event's most successful participants.

A sampling of other notable international wins for the family as owner or breeder also includes Bago (2004 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe), Divine Proportions (2005 Prix de Diane), Light Shift (2007 English Oaks), Ulysses (2017 Eclipse Stakes and International Stakes, son of Light Shift), Alpha Centauri (2018 Irish Horse of the Year), Study of Man (2018 Prix du Jockey Club), War of Will (2019 Preakness Stakes), and Circus Maximus (2019 St James's Palace Stakes and 2020 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot).

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