Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
McKnight’s runners adapting to Oaklawn’s dirt surface
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – A question Oaklawn Park horseplayers are facing on a regular basis this meet is whether Norm McKnight trainees will successfully transition to dirt. Many of the horses in his barn have little or no experience on dirt tracks after spending the bulk of their careers racing on either synthetic or turf surfaces at Woodbine.
McKnight made his way to Oaklawn for the first time a year ago and finished seventh in the local standings with 16 wins from 80 starts. He’s back again for the new meet and has brought more than double the number of horses he did last year.
McKnight has 53 in place, with some of those runners at a local training center. Last year, he brought 24 head to Oaklawn. McKnight is off to a fast start this season, ranking second in the trainers standings to perennial leader Steve Asmussen with a record of five wins from 19 starts.
“Obviously, we’re happy to have started as well as we have,” said McKnight, a 62-year-old native of Ontario, Canada.
McKnight’s winners this meet have included three horses making their first start on dirt: Rock n’ Candy, Giant Pulpit, and Redeal, with two of those runners stepping up in class off a claim at Woodbine.
“When we’re at Woodbine, we’re looking for horses we feel will dirt,” McKnight said. “We do research. A lot of horses coming out of Woodbine have never run on the dirt. We look back into the family to see if the mother, the siblings ran on the dirt. How many starts? How well did they do? That’s one of the things we look at.”
McKnight also looks for horses who performed well in limited dirt starts. A shining example is Cool Catomine, a 5-year-old who won a $10,000 starter allowance last month at Oaklawn with the secondbest Beyer Speed Figure of his career, a 78. His best Beyer had been earned on dirt at 3, an 80 for a win in the second leg of the Canadian Triple Crown, the $500,000 Prince of Wales at Fort Erie.
“We claimed him toward the end of the meet with the game plan he would hopefully move forward on the dirt,” said McKnight.
McKnight said some horses just don’t make the transition despite pedigree support or good works at Oaklawn. One recent starter, he said, came back from his race covered in dirt after being pelted by kickback in an experience that discouraged the runner.
But the success stories outnumber those cases. Smart Spree, who won three straight races a year ago in Arkansas while climbing the class ladder, is back from a freshening and again targeting Oaklawn.
McKnight, a former Standardbred trainer and driver, is coming off the best year of his Thoroughbred training career and for the second year in a row is a Sovereign Award finalist for Canada’s outstanding trainer. He won 149 races last year, and the horses in his care earned $4 million in purses. The success eclipsed his previous best win totals and stable earnings of 99 and $2.1 million achieved in 2017.
“I’ve been blessed with good clients,” McKnight said. “They’ve been very supportive in the decision-making process of where we place the horses to run. I think that’s a lot of it. We’re very fortunate with our clients, to be able to spot horses where we think they can win or have a shot to win.”
Lately, it’s simply been on dirt.
Brother of champion debuts
A 3-year-old full brother to champion filly Monomoy Girl will launch his career in Friday’s seventh race at Oaklawn.
Cowboy Diplomacy runs in a maiden special weight at six furlongs. He is owned by Pocket Aces Racing and Madaket Stable and shares a trainer with his big sister in Brad Cox.
“We like him a lot,” Cox said. “He’s shown us some talent in the morning. This is a good spot to get him started, get his career going.”
Monomoy Girl was named champion 3-year-old filly of 2018 last month for a campaign in which she won 6 of 7 starts and earned $2.8 million. Among her five Grade 1 wins were the Kentucky Oaks and the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
“She’s back at Fair Grounds training extremely well,” Cox said Tuesday. “We don’t know quite yet when we’ll breeze her. We’re real pleased with her right now.”
Monomoy Girl and Cowboy Diplomacy are by Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Tapizar and out of the Henny Hughes mare Drumette. Both horses are chestnut in color.
“They’re very similar physically,” Cox said. “They’re big, strong, strapping horses. They’re the same color. They have very similar heads, the same eye – very similar horses to look at. It’s odd. I’ve had full siblings that don’t look anything alike. These two look like … twins.”
Cowboy Diplomacy will break from post 6 under Fernando De La Cruz.
“I think he’s forward enough where he can win going short,” Cox said. “He has some speed out of the gate. I think he can win going short. I think ultimately, down the road, he’ll be better going long.”
Monomoy Girl won her career debut in a one-mile race on grass at Indiana Grand at 2.
Also in the field Friday is Captain Von Trapp, who in his last start was fifth to eventual Smarty Jones Stakes winner Gray Attempt.
◗ Jessica Krupnick, a stakes winner who ran fifth in the American Beauty on Jan. 26 at Oaklawn, has been retired, said trainer McKnight. He said the 6-year-old daughter of Uncle Mo, owned by Breeze Easy LLC, had originally been purchased for broodmare purposes. McKnight said Jessica Krupnick is to be bred to Into Mischief.