LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Chad Brown has trained five horses to win the Turf Classic at Churchill Downs. Brian Knippenberg, during all of 2024, trained two winners of any sort.
Brown won his fifth Turf Classic last year when Spirit of St Louis defeated Mercante, easily the best horse Knippenberg ever has gotten his hands on. Brown returns with two different horses for Saturday’s renewal of the Turf Classic: Program Trading, who captured this race in 2024, and Asbury Park, who makes his first start against older horses in his Grade 1 debut.
Knippenberg returns with Mercante, second by three-quarters of a length a year ago.
“No reason he can’t run like that again,” Knippenberg said. “Everything around the barn says he’s even better.”
Ten horses entered the Grade 1, $1.5 million Turf Classic.
Corruption cuts back in distance from 1 1/2 miles – one of three such horses in the race – after finishing second by a neck behind the accomplished Far Bridge in the Pan American at Gulfstream. Last May, facing allowance company here, Corruption won wire to wire, and trainer Mark Casse left no doubt about his Turf Classic tactics.
“He’s going to the lead,” Casse said. “That horse is as good as he’s ever been. I think 1 1/8 miles will be just fine.”
Corruption breaks from the rail under Tyler Gaffalione. One stall over comes Dashman, fifth in the Pan American. His lone stakes win came over 1 1/2 miles.
“I’ve always had a very good opinion of him,” trainer Brian Lynch said. “This is his third start back. I think there’s a big chance he can fire a big one, and I do like the cutback in distance.”
In post 3, Flavien Prat riding, is Asbury Park. He has two wins from five starts, Beyer Speed Figures that don’t stack up with the fastest horses in the Turf Classic, and no races since Oct. 4, when he won the Jockey Club Derby Invitational going 1 3/8 miles around three turns at Aqueduct.
“He trains sharp enough, like he can handle a mile-and-an-eighth, two-turn race, but in his races, he acts different than he trains in the morning. He takes a bit to get into stride,” Brown said. “He’s dangerous when he finally gets out to three turns this summer because he sprints home like a two-turn horse. The horse has improved a lot from 3 to 4 – he’s filled out, doing what he’s supposed to do. He could win.”
Next to Asbury Park is Brown’s second runner, Program Trading, who ran in the Manhattan five weeks after his 2024 Turf Classic victory, then didn’t start for almost 15 months. Five starts into his comeback, Program Trading has done some good work but failed to win. To that end, Brown has been working Program Trading in blinkers, and the horse will race in them for the first time Saturday.
It’s not a standard move for Brown, making this equipment change on an established older horse, but it worked with 7-year-old Slumber when he won the Grade 1 Manhattan in 2015.
“It got suggested a couple times by jockeys, as well as riders in the morning, so I decided to do it and see how it goes,” Brown said. “He’s run well at Churchill before. He’s moving better on this track than he was this winter.”
Rhetorical, the horse to beat in the Turf Classic, breaks from post 6 under Irad Ortiz Jr. Rhetorical has the best recent form in this group, with a win in the Grade 1 Turf Mile in October, a good fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, and a third April 10 in the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile, where Rhetorical had a somewhat claustrophobic trip and never really got into a rhythm. Connections initially targeted the Poker Stakes next month at Saratoga, but they switched course after seeing how Rhetorical came out of his race and which horses were aiming for the Turf Classic.
“He’s running around like a wild horse. How can you leave him in the barn?” trainer Will Walden said, rhetorically.
Rhetorical, by Not This Time, hasn’t raced beyond 1 1/16 miles. Will he get the added half-furlong?
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Walden said.
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Eight-year-old Gold Phoenix, who breaks from post 7 under Hector Berrios, has done most of his best work over 1 1/2 miles, but he did ship in for this race last year, closing from 10th to finish a competitive fourth.
Test Score in post 9 with Manny Franco stands a far better chance – a good chance. Test Score, just a 4-year-old, topped $2 million in earnings after landing the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf in January. That was an excellent win, for sure, and one that looked even better when runner-up One Stripe came back to finish second in the Maker’s Mark Mile. The showing demonstrated to trainer Graham Motion that Test Score had made the leap from age 3 to 4 that trainers hope to see.
“So many of them don’t, but this horse, the way he came back, you have to think he did,” Motion said.
Test Score’s Pegasus came on the back of a busy eight-race 2025 campaign that included a close second in the American Turf a year ago at Churchill, so Motion gave him a break. The colt has logged six works for the Turf Classic, the most recent a five-furlong turf breeze at Keeneland that was the best of them, Motion said.
“He’s become a bit of a lazy work horse the last six months,” Motion said. “He’s a very classy, gorgeous horse, a real blue-collar, hard-knocking horse. He does have that little way of backing off the bridle. That’s why Manny wanted to put the blinkers on him.”
Test Score has two wins and a third since adding blinkers. A mile and an eighth might be his best trip.
Make Me King shipped from Dubai, drew post 10, and has Jose Ortiz named to ride. He has raced as far as 1 1/8 miles in only four of his 28 starts. He did so March 28, checking in a competitive fourth – after racing in tight quarters a furlong out – in the $5 million Dubai Turf. A repeat of that showing gives him a chance.
A repeat of Mercante’s performance a year ago gives him one, too. Knippenberg never has trained more than a handful of horses. In his day job, he’s the manager of Carl Pollard’s Hermitage Farm. Pollard bred and owns Mercante, who started his career with Bill Mott but wound up at Hermitage recovering from an injury. Knippenberg decided to get bold, asking if he could train Mercante when he was returning in 2024 from a year-plus layoff. Pollard assented, and Mercante rose.
His Turf Classic was sandwiched between wins in the Kentucky Cup Classic and the Arlington Stakes. Mercante’s form slipped a little later last summer and fall, when he fell into the habit of breaking poorly and getting into traffic.
Knippenberg had hoped to run the horse in the Dust Commander at Turfway Park as a prep for another try in the Kentucky Cup Classic, but a cold, snowy winter and the accompanying lost training forced Knippenberg to go straight into the Kentucky Cup, where Mercante’s trip turned as brutal as the winter. He ran well to nab second.
“Since that race, he’s been coming out of his skin,” Knippenberg said.
In an ideal world, Mercante breaks alertly and jockey Joe Ramos plunks him down just outside and behind Corruption. Knippenberg won 10 races last year, doubling his previous high total. That’s just a good week’s work for Brown, who has twice the Turf Classic firepower as Knippenberg. Mercante alone might suffice.
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