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Knuckley, Clary Keep Neatherlin Legacy Alive With Don’tcrossthedevil

You could be forgiven if the fifth race at Louisiana Downs Monday evening was well off your radar screen, but Don'tcrossthedevil (Cross Traffic)'s 4 1/4-length victory in the one mile and 70 yard allowance completed a long and winding road to redemption for co-owner Kevin Knuckley and trainer and breeder Jaylan Clary. Clary bred the 4-year-old gelding with her late father, trainer Michael Neatherlin, and the bay made his winning debut at Remington Park just weeks after Neatherlin died in the fall of 2021. A second open-lengths victory briefly had the bay on the Derby trail in early 2022, but after a failed stint in California, Don'tcrossthedevil is back in the Midwest with Clary and was back in the winner's circle for the first time since 2021.

“I pinhook mostly and I actually got started with that through Mike Neatherlin,” Knuckley recalled. “He called me in January of 2021 to buy in on three different horses and also asked if I wanted to buy into this 2-year-old that he and his daughter Jaylan bred. One of Mike's favorite expressions was, 'I'm telling you, Kevin. I'm telling you. You got to listen to me. This horse is special.' And I had to agree. We settled on an $80,000 market value and I bought a quarter of him for $20,000.”

It didn't hurt that Knuckley was already familiar with the family. He and his father had raced Don'tcrossthedevil's dam, the stakes-placed The Devil Is Mine (Devil His Due), in their Double Knuck Stables.

“She was a stone-cold runner herself, but she had some issues,” Knuckley said of the mare. “But she's produced some pretty nice babies and this is probably one of the better sires she's been bred to in Cross Traffic.”

The plan was to give Don'tcrossthedevil time to grow up before he made his first start, but the timing of that debut effort was pushed further back than expected.

“He was a big, lanky horse, so he needed to grow into himself a little bit,” Knuckley said. “We wanted to start him a little later in his 2-year-old year. We were angling for August or September and we took him to Remington. But Mike got COVID. He got it really bad and it killed him. He passed away in September. Don'tcrossthedevil was actually supposed to start the day after Mike died. We had to scratch him out of that race because of that.”

The loss hit Knuckley hard.

“He was a big brother, a mentor to me in this business,” Knuckley said. “He was the one who got me started pinhooking and we raced horses with Mike. Everything, foundationally, that I know about this business goes back to Mike. I watched his kids grow up, Jaylan and his stepson Lane Richardson. And now I am partners with Lane in pinhooking and I've got three runners in training with Jaylan.”

A few weeks after Neatherlin's passing, Don'tcrossthedevil fulfilled the Texas horseman's belief in him, breaking his maiden at Remington Park by 1 1/2 lengths. He added a six-length victory in an allowance race a month later.

“Both times I cried like a baby,” Knuckley said of those victories. “I mean, I just bawled. Because I missed Mike so much. And I know how proud he was of his daughter and me. And being able to team up like this–how special it was. All of these emotions just came up.”

The two impressive victories led to some inquiries to sell the promising young runner.

“The phone started ringing a couple of times [after his first win],” Knuckley said. “Jaylan priced him at $200,000 or $250,000, no one really bid at that point. His next race, he won again. And did it really impressively. The phone rang again. And finally we came to terms with Mark Martinez [of Agave Racing].”

Martinez purchased Don'tcrossthedevil for $225,000, with Knuckley staying in for 10%.

“He probably would have been the favorite for the Springboard Mile at Remington, but Mark didn't have any connections there and he raced with Phil D'Amato, who had an assistant at Oaklawn,” Knuckley recalled. “We shipped him to Oaklawn and on Jan. 1, we put him on the Derby trail in the Smarty Jones. That was a nightmare. It was rainy, terrible trip, everything, and he didn't do well there at all. We put him in the Southwest and that was a mess, too. We took him off the trail and shipped him out to California under Phil's direct training.”

Things didn't improve for the gelding out on the West Coast where he was well-beaten in three starts. Martinez was ready to call it quits, but Knuckley couldn't let go of his last connection to Neatherlin.

“We tried routing him, we tried him on the grass,” Knuckley said of Don'tcrossthedevil's time in California. “But we just couldn't put it together. Phil has probably 175 horses in his barn and I think this horse just got lost in the program and in the shuffle out there. Mark said he was ready to drop him for $16,000-$20,000 at Santa Anita. And I flat out told him, that's giving him away and they are going to take him. And he said, 'I am done.' This is a guy who payed $225,000 for this horse and he was ready to walk away from him.”

Martinez, who had by this point become a good friend, as well as a business partner to Knuckley, ultimately let him buy the horse back at a fraction of his estimated value and Don'tcrossthedevil returned home to Clary's barn. In his first start back for his breeder and original trainer, the gelding was a creditable second going 6 1/2 furlongs at Lone Star in May. He was third when stretched to a mile June 10 and made it all the way back to the winner's circle as a 25-1 longshot Monday evening.

“If you look at his running line, ever since Jaylan has had him, his Equibase numbers have gone up,” Knuckley said. “From 77, 81 and in the 90s yesterday. His best races have been with Jaylan. Yesterday, he finally did it. He found the winner's circle again and he found it with Jaylan. She bred him, she raised him and she brought this horse back. He was lost and she found him.”

Knuckley celebrated the victory a state away near his home in Texas.

“I went to Lone Star Bar and Book and I was there among a handful of strangers and they were all wondering what was going on,” Knuckley said. “I bought a round of drinks for the whole bar. It was a rush of emotions. I welled up. I thought of Mike and I was just so proud of Jaylan. And selfishly, I was happy for myself for bringing him back, for keeping the faith. We thought we had a big horse, we took our shot on the Derby trail and, as it does for most, it didn't end well. And sometimes you never see or hear from those horses again. And this horse has shown how resilient he is. I am proud of him for that.”

He continued, “As always there is that almost indescribable and unrivaled feeling of exhilaration of winning a horse race. And on top of the adrenaline and sentimental emotions that the victory carried with it, there was an unmistakable sensation of redemption. And when I spoke to Jaylan last night, we both agreed that Mike had that magnetic smile and look of pure joy on his face as he looked down upon us. We could feel how proud he is of us.”

As for what is next for Don'tcrossthedevil, Knuckley said, “I am not against trying a low-level listed stakes, maybe a $75,000 stakes or something and see what that looks like.”

5th-Louisiana Downs, $28,330, 7-17, (C), 3yo/up, 1m 70y (off turf), 1:43.45, ft, 4 1/4 lengths.

DON'TCROSSTHEDEVIL (g, 4, Cross Traffic–The Devil Is Mine {SP}, by Devil His Due) Lifetime Record: 11-3-1-1, $73,292. O-Kevin Knuckley & Pat Heinsen; B-Jaylan Renay Neatherlin (KY); T-Jaylan Renay Clary. *1/2 to Eurodevilwoman (Euroears), SP, $217,408.

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Symbiosis of Breeders, Gluck Equine Research Center Reaches New Heights

When Dr. Emma Adam took on the role of equine outreach veterinarian in 2018, the University of Kentucky's Department of Veterinary Science hoped that the renewed position could continue to bridge the gap between their research and diagnostic laboratories and the industry that they serve.

With five years now under her belt in the role, Adam is pleased with the strides that have been made in fostering relationships with the equine community–particularly within the Thoroughbred business in Central Kentucky–and she is optimistic that those connections will lead to further advancements in the coming years.

While Adam's role encompasses outreach for both UK's Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center and the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, she said the Diagnostic Lab has always been more outward facing by nature so her initial goal was to bring more external emphasis to the research center.

“Our entire community wants to be better connected with our industry stakeholders, but bandwidths can limit that reality,” Adam explained. “I think everyone recognized the need for someone who had practice and industry experience and could bring that to the Gluck Center to connect it with what we do within the building. Researchers are so busy trying to fund their projects and write papers that the time available to get out there and interact with our industry was getting less and less. We needed to take a step back and say, 'What do we need to do to remain connecting what is happening in our industry with what is happening in our academic community and vice versa, so that we can help each other?'”

Adam's background in racing has served her well in her position, which was spearheaded by Nancy Cox, UK's Vice President for land-grant engagement and Dean of Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. A native of Newmarket, England, Adam was immersed in the racing and breeding industry from a young age as she grew up on a commercial farm and was first familiarized with the racing side of the business when she worked for champion trainer Sir Michael Stoute. As a practicing veterinarian, she worked in various racing and breeding-related positions around the globe before deciding to return to academia and earn her PhD at UK's Department of Veterinary Science. From there, she stepped into her current role.

Making connections with farm managers and veterinarians has proven to be invaluable as Adam has worked to get the word out on the Gluck Center's mission and increase awareness among owners and breeders on the resources that the research center has to offer.

“Our research community is brilliant, but reaching them is sometimes difficult,” Adam admitted. “We have a fantastic network here through the Consignors and Commercial Breeders Association, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers Club and our veterinary community. While we'd always love for it to be bigger, we're developing a stronger network of people that know we're here to help.”

Dr. Emma Adam | photo courtesy Emma Adam

When breeders have issues arise, such as pregnancy loss, the Gluck Center's team coordinates with the Diagnostic Lab, veterinarians and farm managers to investigate those problems.

“We will go through lots of different parameters with the veterinarian and the farm manager and take some colleagues that might help with such things as examining the pastures,” Adam explained. “We'll do hay, soil and water analysis, and examine records for each mare. We'll work closely with our colleagues in the Diagnostic Lab so we can connect any dots that might be available to look at from the perspective of those unfortunate pregnancy losses.”

“We may not always arrive at an answer, but along the way we'll have often found out some other things that we can be more vigilant for,” she continued. “Those things might include checking to make sure that we're testing our pastures for things like tall fescue or trying to avoid stress when moving mares to different pastures. Everybody brings something to the table and we chew it all over and see if we currently have what we think is the best possible plan for that farm and then offer help to implement it if we can.”

Adam stressed that confidentiality and trust are important aspects of the work they do with commercial breeding farms.

“We have very strict confidentiality obligations and we take them very seriously,” she said. “All samples and veterinary and farm interactions are completely confidential. We recognize that it is vital that people can trust everything we do, not only with the quality of our science but in how we handle those interactions. We're very fortunate that people are generous with their information and we respect that they have entrusted us with it.”

Building relationships with more breeding farms throughout Central Kentucky has been an ongoing goal that Adam said she believes will lead to mutually beneficial results for both the research center and breeders.

One example of how this reciprocity has led to research findings is in the Gluck's studies on nocardioform placentitis, a cause of late-term abortions and perinatal deaths. Recent studies on this disease have been made possible in large part by the samples researchers have received from local farms. Efforts are ongoing with the goal of developing an early-warning diagnostic test for the condition and better understanding how and when mares are exposed.

The breeding industry supports the Gluck not only in supplying samples, but on occasion, in providing much-needed financial support. When a rash of neonatal foal diarrhea broke out in the spring of 2021, the general consensus was that the cases behaved like Equine Rotavirus A, however diagnostic tests were coming back negative. Upon closer examination, UK virologists Drs. Feng Li and Dan Wang were able to perform genomic sequencing on samples to determine that a new strain of Rotavirus had emerged.

The Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Foundation, The Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation, Coolmore America, Consignors and Commercial Breeders Association and the William S. Farish Fund provided gifts to develop a research plan to develop a vaccine. This summer, work is being done to test new vaccine candidates that are hoped will provide protection to foals against Equine Rotavirus B.

“That is a perfect example of how our industry is really trying to help itself by helping us,” said Adam. “We're very fortunate to have a relationship where they recognize that we're here and trying to help and where they support us in that effort because there is so little money for equine research. When it comes to things that are a bit more niche like foaling mares, it is even harder to get funds to do the kind of work that is relevant to our industry.”

Adam explained that the concentration of mares bred and foaled in Central Kentucky can oftentimes lead people to falsely believe that the area has more problems than other places. Instead, she described how the community's outstanding veterinarians and farm managers endow the region with a culture of constant vigilance and a drive to understand every problem encountered.

“Everything is so close here,” she shared. “You don't have to drive more than an hour from any of these farms to get to our world-class Veterinary Diagnostic Lab that sees probably more horses and horse samples than any lab globally. What that means is we're able to, as best as we possibly can, explore and understand what happened and how can we might prevent it in future. That is not something that a lot of other places can access so easily.”

Moving forward as a growing number of local farms have started utilizing the Gluck's resources, Adam's next goal is to develop ways to gather data each year from surveys and surveillance sampling. These findings will be used to build profiles of how data is changing over time. The Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory website collates some of these data, but Adam said she wishes to extend the survey to the farm level.

“We can take that data gathering further in asking our stakeholders to help us generate information on the things we deal with on a farm level–for example, pregnancy losses, red bag deliveries, foal diarrhea cases, yearling respiratory disease and so the list goes on,” she explained. “These data are absolutely essential to inform and direct our research not just at the local level here in the department, but from the perspective of being able to go out there and fight for the funding from the grant agencies to get that research done.”

Embarking on such a project is only possible with the collaboration of the entire Thoroughbred breeding industry in Central Kentucky, but Adam said she is counting on both the relationships that are newly formed and in others that have flourished over the years.

“The Department's footprint in our community continues to grow and that is a culture all of us in the University are keen to expand,” she said. “Taken together we have extraordinary natural and human resources here in Kentucky to serve and support our industry locally and worldwide.”

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Summer Breezes: July 19, 2023

Some of the most highly anticipated races during the summer racing season are the 'baby' races during the boutique meetings at both Saratoga and Del Mar and at Ellis Park, which attract its fair share of high-priced offspring from a variety of top national outfits.

Summer Breezes highlights debuting 2-year-olds at those meetings that have been sourced at the breeze-up sales earlier in the year, with links to their under-tack previews. To follow are the horses entered for Saratoga Wednesday:

Wednesday, July 19, 2023
Saratoga 6, $83k, 2yo, f, (R), 5 1/2f, 4:00 p.m. ET
Horse (Sire), Sale, Price ($), Breeze
Almond Fudge (Practical Joke), OBSAPR, 50,000, click
C-Sterling Thoroughbreds, Agent; B-Glenn Del Russo
Bertrille (Vino Rosso), FTMMAY, 35,000, see below
C-Top Line Sales LLC, agent; B-Bruce Brown, agent

Crazy Cami (Audible), OBSAPR, 45,000, click
C-Mayberry Farm, Agent; B-Mike Maker
Tempting Lady (Enticed)–AE, FTMMAY, 40,000, see below
C-Pick View LLC, agent; B-Legion Bloodstock, agt. for Ryan Scott

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With Golden Gate Closing, Can Nor-Cal Fashion Alternative Circuit?

One day on, the fallout from The Stronach Group's (TSG) announcement that it is closing Golden Gate Fields at the end of the year continues to reverberate around the state's beleaguered platoon of trainers, owners, breeders and other stakeholders.

“It's like you're Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life, and you're losing your job right before Christmas,” said trainer Tim McCanna Monday, while on the road to Del Mar for the track's summer meet. “It just really leaves things up in the air.”

The reason for the closure of Golden Gate, according to TSG's Sunday announcement, was to focus its racing and training venues at Santa Anita Park and San Luis Rey Downs, consolidating the horse population in Southern California with the goal of increasing field sizes and adding another day of racing to the weekly racing calendar at Santa Anita.

McCanna, who maintains a stable of roughly 36 horses at Golden Gate, said that about half of his string are classy enough to fit the Southern California circuit. But at the moment, McCanna is unsure where the rest of his string might head, he said.

As such, McCanna said that he might end up leaving California entirely to race elsewhere. “It's possible,” he replied.

“I don't want to,” he added. “My home's up in Washington. It's a great commute for me back to my ranch up there, and to my owners up there. I still run at Emerald Downs. It was just a good fit, Northern California.”

Given the political winds that have pummeled California racing, and the spotlight Golden Gate has been under by animal rights groups in recent years, there's a palpable sense of inevitability about the closure among many industry stakeholders.

More shocking has been the abrupt nature of the announcement, poorly timed to coincide with the Northern California yearling and horses of racing age sale Aug.15 at Alameda County Fairgrounds.

“If I were those guys, I wouldn't even call the van to pick the horses up,” said Tom Bachman, a long-time owner-breeder in the state.

The decision to close Golden Gate, Bachman added, will likely hit the state's biggest breeders the hardest–a grim prognosis with profound implications for Santa Anita.

During Santa Anita's recently concluded six-month meet, Cal-breds made up about 37% of all individual starts, according to DRF chart data, and Cal-bred races constituted more than 20% of the overall races.

While Cal-breds make up a significant portion of Santa Anita's inventory, however, their influence is waning, according to DRF chart data. The average Cal-bred race field size at Santa Anita's recently concluded meet was 7.36. In 2018, it was 9.01. Ten years ago, it was 9.70.

“I don't know what's going to happen to Barton Thoroughbreds, and the Terry Lovingiers and Tommy Town–those people who breed a large number of horses–I just don't know where those horses are going to find a home,” Bachman said, before estimating that only between 10-15% of the horses at Golden Gate would suit the SoCal circuit.

“The Stronach Group have made a really poor decision trying to prop up Santa Anita with the horses from Golden Gate,” Bachman added. “There's just not enough horses at Golden Gate to make the difference down there.”

Bill Nader, president and CEO of the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC), voiced frustration at the dearth of specific details currently on offer.

“It's all happened so fast,” said Nader. “Whether anybody thought this day would come or not, to that end we're surprised by the news, but we're not shocked by the news.

“By the same token, we do not have the complete story yet to really have any kind of meaningful discussion that can result in a recommendation as to what the best avenue is to take California racing forward,” he said. “There's so much missing detail at the moment, it's hard to give you a complete answer.”

The TDN requested an interview Monday with a TSG representative and submitted a series of questions.

Among the questions raised were those about future land use at the facility, and about specific reasons for the planned closure. Earlier this month, for example, the TDN reported that Berkeley City Council had issued a proposed ordinance that, if passed into law, would make it illegal to keep a horse stabled for more than 10 hours a day at Golden Gate, and requires that every horse has access to a minimum of one-half acre pasture turnout.

The TDN also asked about the organization's short and long-term future for Santa Anita. This included whether it planned to invest in renovating the track's long rundown living quarters for the backstretch staff–what many would see as a gesture of the organization's firm commitment to horse racing in the state.

Golden Gate Fields | Shane Micheli/Vassar Photography

TSG declined to answer the questions. “For now, the [Sunday] statement is going to be our comment around the story. We look forward to being in touch in the future about our plans,” wrote Stefan Friedman, a TSG spokesperson.

But amid the rubble of Sunday's announcement, the California Authority of Racing Fairs (CARF) has emerged swiftly with a possible alternative vision of racing in Northern California.

CARF executive director, Larry Swartzlander, shared with the TDN Monday a one-page document outlining in bullet-point CARF's position on the 2024 racing program.

Among the points raised, CARF proposes:

-That TSG reassess Golden Gate's closure date to run through the end of next June. This would give stakeholders more time to realign the racing calendar.

-That Cal Expo in Sacramento becomes the “base of operations” for year-round racing in Northern California.

-That CARF forms a new racing association called “Capitol Racing.”

-Finding revenue sources to support “capitol improvements” at Capitol Racing tracks, including a new turf track at Cal Expo.

-A new racing calendar with reduced dates with the intent to improve field size, return racing to four days a week, and give the Cal Expo turf course time to recover, among other reasons.

-Moving summer racing at Cal Expo to the evening.

According to Swartzlander, a new turf course at Cal Expo would take approximately six months to build and cost roughly $6 million.

There's currently no funding for the proposed track, though Swartzlander said there are a “variety of different funding sources” he was looking at.

“This was a unilateral decision,” said Swartzlander, about Sunday's announcement by TSG. “And now, this all needs to be reassessed with all the stakeholders of California.”

The next California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) race-dates committee meeting is on Aug. 16.

When approached about CARF's proposals Monday morning, Alan Balch, executive director of the California Thoroughbred Trainers (CTT), declined to comment, other than to say that “we don't know what the CARF plan is, and we will evaluate what we see when we see it.”

Nader was similarly equivocal. “We can look at that as an option, and we'll have a conversation with them later this week,” said Nader.

“But again, we've got to put that down alongside whatever it is this plan is going to look like–we'll call it the 1/ST Racing, Santa Anita and San Luis Rey plan. Until we have those side-by-side, I think it's impossible to really come to any meaningful decision,” he said, adding that the TOC board was planning to meet via telephone late Monday afternoon.

“I expect emotions are going to run high,” he said. “It'll probably be a spirited conversation. But we won't have a unified position because there are a lot of pieces to this puzzle that are still unclear.”

Given the general quality of racehorse participating at Golden Gate, a potential obstacle to broad participation among that group at Santa Anita would be the minimum $10,000 claiming threshold at the track–a condition of licensure imposed by the CHRB in 2019.

According to agency spokesperson Mike Marten, however, the CHRB looked at Santa Anita's most recent license application–spanning their recently concluded winter-spring 2022-2023 meet–and that condition “was not discussed or included.”

Another wrinkle in this whole fragmented saga is TSG's potential purchase of the Arizona Downs racetrack, as reported by the TDN in August of last year.

Reached Monday morning, Tom Auther, an Arizona Downs owner and partner, said he and his partners have continued to speak with TSG representatives “every once in a while,” but that other potential buyers were circling the facility.

“I don't know if Golden Gate going away helps, hurts, or makes any difference at all,” he said, when asked if the announcement changes the color of these ongoing negotiations. “We've walked a couple other entities through it. But I don't want to make things sound imminent because it isn't.”

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