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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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Turnerloose, Tiz The Bomb Capture Juvenile Turf Stakes At Kentucky Downs

With the kind of results Joel Rosario was producing at Kentucky Downs on the second day of the short meet in Franklin, Ky., victory in The Aristocrat Gaming Juvenile Fillies came down to either his 2-year-old, Yin Yang, or her stablemate in the Brad Cox barn, Turnerloose, with Florent Geroux aboard.

Rosario finished the day by winning 5 of the 11 races, but he rode in just eight of them. Fortune did not smile on him in the $500,000 filly co-feature, as Turnerloose turned it on down the long stretch to cross the wire five lengths ahead of Yin Yang.

“Look at that, I beat Joel Rosario today,” said a joyful Geroux as he brought Turnerloose back to the winner's circle.

Closing out Monday's holiday program was another $500,000 stakes for 2-year-olds, The Kentucky Downs Juvenile Mile, with 6-1 Tiz the Bomb also using the stretch to his advantage to score a three-quarters-length victory with Brian Hernandez Jr. aboard.

The filly race was more spread out. Behind the top two, sent off at very identical 2-1 odds in the field of nine, it was another 7 1/4 lengths until early pacesetter Verylittlecents and Joe Talamo finished.

“The break, she was very excited there, and didn't get out of there real quickly,” Rosario said. “But she did everything good, and she came running. She's nice, the other horse just got a jump on her. I'm very excited with the way she ran.”

Both of the Cox fillies had broken their maidens at Ellis Park in July. The victory pulled Cox into a tie with Joe Sharp atop the trainer standings, with three apiece.

“Both are very good fillies. I said last week that I liked both fillies, that I thought I'd go 1-2 in the race,” said Jorje Abrego, assistant trainer to Cox, about the pair who are part of the band he was supervising at Ellis this summer. “Turnerloose looked like 'turn her loose' today. She ran well. Yin Yang ran a very good second, so it was very good day for the team.”

Even more excited was Geroux after his first win at the meet, after missing Sunday's opener while riding at Saratoga.

“She was pulling on me pretty much all of the race, she wanted to go,” he said. “So, by the turn, she just kept on going. She was on a mission: she just wanted to take it to them, which was great.”

Turnerloose paid $6, $3 and $2.80, while Yin Yang returned $3.60 and $3. Verylittlecents paid $4 for show in a race timed in 1:36.19 for the mile on a turf course rated as firm.

It was a big win for Turnerloose, owned by Ike and Dawn Thrash, and now Team Cox has to look to her future – and to that of Yin Yang. Turnerloose was a $950,000 purchase at last year's Keeneland September sale, while Selective LLC's Yin Yang sold for $160,000 at the Fasig Tipton sale in October.

“This was big for her, now she's a stakes-winner,” Abrego said. “Now is the time to look for a graded stakes. We'll see how she is tomorrow, and if everything is good, maybe get her ready for Keeneland. Yin Yang just got beat by what, today, was a better horse.”

Not to be outdone, Phoenix Thoroughbred Ltd.'s Tiz the Bomb took a major step forward with his victory in 1:35.83 on the firm turf course.

Tiz the Bomb wins the Kentucky Downs Juvenile Mile

“He's got a license to be a good one,” said trainer Kenny McPeek about the colt, who sold for $330,000 at last year's Fasig Tipton yearling sale. “We're thrilled with the way he ran.”

While Play Action Pass and Edgard J. Zayas were setting the early fractions in the field of 10, Tiz the Bomb was in the middle of the pack.

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“He ran well today, the first time on the grass,” said Hernandez. “He put us in the spot and traveled the whole way around there looking like a winner, and got the job done.”

Kiss the Sky, the 2-1 favorite ridden by Jose Ortiz, was just behind Tiz the Bomb, and both colts took a wide path into the stretch for their rallying efforts. But Kiss the Sky, who won a maiden race at Saratoga for trainer Mike Maker in his second start, came up short.

“He ran well, second best,” said Maker, who was leading the Saratoga trainer standings for a good portion of the New York track's summer meeting.

Tiz the Bomb paid $14.20, $5.40 and $4, while Kiss the Sky paid $3.60 and $2.80. Play Action, the 12-1 early leader, was another half-length back in third and returned $6.40.

“They've been bragging on him over at the barn about how well he's been working,” Hernandez said of Tiz the Bomb. “And they were kinda tipping their hand about this performance. Robby Albarado has been working this horse in the mornings. He said that all of a sudden he turned the corner going the right way, and he showed it today.”

McPeek said Tiz the Bomb, who has won two of his three initial starts, might return to dirt in Keeneland's Grade 1 Breeders' Futurity.

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘I Don’t Think I Could Ever Work For Somebody Else’

Jorje Abrego distinctly remembers that dark day in 2012 when Midwest Thoroughbreds abruptly removed their horses from trainer Brad Cox's barn.

“It was 3:00 in the afternoon, and I looked down the shed row to see all webbings laying open, no horses in the stalls; it was sad,” Abrego said. “I remember somebody told me, 'You know, you better find another job, because Brad has only two horses!'

“Brad came into Barn 47 and told me, 'Please don't go anywhere, I'll keep you on your salary if you stay here. I'm going to get more horses.'”

That he did. The Cox operation is now setting new milestones: the barn had four Breeders' Cup winners at the 2020 World Championships, and has three top candidates on the Kentucky Derby trail early in 2021.

“You know, sometimes bad things come, and then very good things come after,” Abrego said from his office at Oaklawn Park. “The rest is a very good story. It's amazing, really.”

The 35-year-old native of Guatemala has been at Cox's side since 2009, working his way up from a part-time groom and part-time hotwalker to one of the trainer's top assistants. Abrego had only ever worked with a few horses, and had never seen a racehorse before arriving in the United States at the age of 22. He only walked hots before taking the job in Cox's barn.

It isn't hard to see that Abrego's long-time loyalty to the trainer runs deep; he's one of the first ones at the barn in the morning, and one of the last to leave it at night. He can be found in most of the photographs of the barn's top runners, and he still answers Cox's calls with a crisp, respectful, “Yes, sir.”

For the past five or six years, Abrego has made Oaklawn Park his winter home, handling a barn full of horses as well as the high-quality ship-in runners. Last weekend, for example, champions Monomoy Girl and Essential Quality shipped up from New Orleans before triumphing in local stakes races.

Assistant trainer Jorje Abrego celebrates a victory at Oaklawn Park

The chestnut phenom Monomoy Girl is the one who has Abrego's heart, however.

“I love every single horse in my barn, and maybe Brad Cox will win 100 more Grade 1 races, but I'll always remember her,” Abrego said. “She was the first Grade 1 for the team, and it's amazing to have a 6-year-old filly still running.”

The daughter of Tapizar gave Cox his first G1 win in the 2018 Ashland Stakes at Keeneland, and has now won two editions of the Breeders' Cup Distaff, in 2018 and in 2020. She missed over a year of racing between her championship-defining victories, but came back with a vengeance to dominate her division in 2020.

Monomoy Girl sold to Spendthrift Farm for $9.5 million at the end of 2020, and B. Wayne Hughes decided to return the champion racemare to Cox for a final season of racing in 2021. In her first start as a 6-year-old, Monomoy Girl posted a facile victory in the G3 Bayakoa Stakes on Feb. 28 at Oaklawn.

Her racing success isn't the only thing Abrego loves about the mare.

“This filly is so sweet, too, especially when you give her a peppermint,” he said. “When this filly is walking the shed row, she's like a pony. You'd never think she would run like that.”

The excitement is ramping up in the whole barn this year, as Cox has three runners with points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby. The trainer has never started a horse in the Run for the Roses, but with 2-year-old champion Essential Quality in the barn, as well as prep winners Mandaloun and Caddo River, the first Saturday in May can't come quickly enough.

“I just hope we have the right one in the barn, the winner,” Abrego said, smiling.

Jorje Abrego, left, schooling Essential Quality in the paddock at Oaklawn before the colt's win in the G3 Southwest Stakes

At the end of the day, win or lose, Abrego knows he has the best job in the world. He has a hard time expressing his gratitude to Cox for taking a chance on him all those years ago, but he'll never forget it.

“When I told him this, believe me, it came from my heart,” Abrego relayed. “I told him, 'I don't think I could ever work for somebody else.' I love this job too much.

“I don't feel like Brad Cox is my boss, really. The guy treats me like family.”

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