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Rock Hard Ten Dies In Korea

Rock Hard Ten (Kris S.–Tersa, by Mr. Prospector), a Classic-placed Grade I winner at seven and 10 furlongs, passed away Nov. 12 in South Korea, according to the Korean Stud Book. The news was first reported by the Paulick Report.

Rock Hard Ten, whose dam was a half-sister to GI Kentucky Derby winner Gato Del Soul (Cougar II), was bred by Madeleine Paulson and carried her colors to a debut victory in February 2004 before Mercedes Stables bought into the colt. Second, but demoted to third in the GI Santa Anita Derby in just his third career start, the dark bay was the distant runner-up to Smarty Jones (Elusive Quality) in the GI Preakness S. and was unplaced in the GI Belmont S. before bouncing back in the GII Swaps Breeders' Cup S. Transferred from trainer Jason Orman to Richard Mandella at the end of his sophomore season, Rock Hard Ten defeated Lava Man (Slew City Slew) in the GI Malibu S. at seven furlongs before adding the 2005 GII Strub S. and GI Santa Anita H. He returned from a seven-month absence to add the GI Goodwood Breeders' Cup H.

Retired to Lane's End Farm, Rock Hard Ten was responsible for 25 black-type winners, 15 at the graded level, including Nereid, winner of the 2011 GI American Oaks. Among his other graded winners are Doubles Partner, Capital Plan and Puerto Rican champion Tonito M., who took the 2014 GIII Oklahoma Derby once repatriated.

Exported to Korea in late 2012, he has been represented by 77 winners and was a top-10 sire by progeny earnings in 2019. He has been by a dozen winners this season. In total, Rock Hard Ten is the sire of 387 worldwide winners to date.

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Rock Hard Ten Dies Suddenly In Korea At Age 20

Rock Hard Ten, a multiple Grade 1 winner and veteran sire, died suddenly Nov. 12, according to Korea Racing Authority records.

The 20-year-old son of Kris S. stood at the KRA's Jeju Stud Farm, the operation's primary stallion station.

Through the KRA's Alastair Middleton, the farm issued the following statement to the Paulick Report:

“Rock Hard Ten was observed unable to stand in his paddock. He was moved to the equine hospital where he underwent treatment but he sadly died within 24 hours”

Bred in Kentucky and raced by Madeline Paulson, and later co-owned by Mercedes Stables, Rock Hard Ten debuted in February of his 3-year-old campaign, and finished third in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby in his third start. He then finished second to Smarty Jones in the 2005 Preakness Stakes and fifth in the Belmont Stakes before notching his first graded win in the G2 Swaps Breeders' Cup Stakes at Hollywood Park.

Rock Hard Ten's 3-year-old season ended with a victory in the G1 Malibu Stakes, which kicked off a four-race winning streak to finish his career. During his 4-year-old season, Rock Hard Ten won the G2 Strub Stakes, the G1 Santa Anita Handicap, and the G2 Goodwood Breeders' Cup Handicap. He retired with seven wins in 11 starts for earnings of $1,870,380.

After his racing career, Rock Hard Ten retired to Lane's End for the 2006 breeding season. He resided at the Versailles, Ky., farm until January 2013, when he was exported to Korea.

Rock Hard Ten has sired 13 crops of racing age, with 330 winners and combined progeny earnings in excess of $27 million.

His U.S.-sired runners were led by Grade 1 winner Nereid, Grade 2 winners Capital Plan and Doubles Partner, Grade 3 winners Summersault, Quality Rocks, and Black Onyx. and French Group 3 winner Abtaal.

He is also the sire of Tonito M., who was named Puerto Rico's champion 2-year-old colt in 2013, then was brought to the mainland U.S., where his career was highlighted by a victory in the G3 Oklahoma Derby. Two-time Peruvian champion miler Arezzo was also sired by Rock Hard Ten during his time in the U.S.

Rock Hard Ten currently ranks 22nd on Korea's leading general sire list. He was 13th in 2020, and 10th in 2019, which were his two highest year-end positions to date.

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Knicks Go Possible for Pegasus

Korea Racing Association's Knicks Go (Paynter), fresh off an emphatic victory in the GI Longines Breeders' Cup Classic at Del Mar Saturday, could cap his career in the Jan. 29 GI Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park, trainer Brad Cox confirmed Sunday.

“If he comes out of it good and he trains well, we'll point for the Pegasus,” Cox said. “It's a good purse, it's a surface he likes and if he's doing well, there have been horses that won the Breeders' Cup and ended their careers with that, between the likes of Gun Runner and City of Light. It's always a nice race that you can pick off hopefully before going off to stud.”

Knicks Go is expected to begin his stud career at Taylor Made Farm next year.

The $3-million Pegasus could also be the target of Saturday's GI Big Ass Fans Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile winner Life Is Good (Into Mischief).

“That's what we'd spoke about prior to the race that our sort of two-race plan was the Mile and then stretch him out farther in the Pegasus,” trainer Todd Pletcher said Sunday. “He certainly ran well enough to proceed in that direction if everything goes smoothly, but we haven't really had any time to really firmly discuss our entire plans yet. I'm sure once everybody gets back to their headquarters, we'll have that conversation.”

China Horse Club and WinStar Farm's Life is Good, knocked off the Triple Crown trail earlier this year by an ankle chip, was a narrow second in his comeback race, the seven-furlong GI H. Allen Jerkens Memorial at Saratoga and won the one-mile GII Kelso H. by 5 1/2 lengths Belmont Park Sept. 25 before his Breeders' Cup victory.

“It was everything that we were hoping for and then maybe even more,” Pletcher said of Saturday's victory at Del Mar. “The horse had trained spectacularly coming into the race and I felt like he was sitting on a big race. When he broke cleanly, you could tell they were going quickly and there were some other horses trying to be involved. My first concern was just, hopefully, he hadn't gone too fast, but it seemed like he was relaxed and settled. In spite of the fact that he was rolling right along, he was doing it comfortably. I think that's kind of what we've come to expect from him. He's one of those horses that's extremely fast, has a very high cruising speed and the ability to continue doing it. What was even more impressive to me than the :21 and four and :44 and change and 1:08 and change, is that he essentially won geared down. Then Irad [Ortiz] had to reach up and grab a hold of him in the middle of the turn. Galloping out, he was still full of horse. I don't think he could have been any more impressive.”

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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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