Mercante, no longer a Cinderella, takes on Kentucky Turf Cup

Carl Pollard’s 5-year-old gelding Mercante, one of the favorites in Saturday’s Grade 2 Kentucky Turf Cup Invitational at Kentucky Downs, transitioned on Kentucky Derby day from Cinderella story to legitimate contender every time he runs.

That’s when Mercante nearly pulled off an upset in the $1 million Turf Classic (G1) at Churchill Downs, leading in the final furlong before finishing second by three-quarters of a length to favored Spirit of St Louis.

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Spirit of St Louis, who runs in Saturday’s Mint Millions Invitational (G3) at Kentucky Downs, is trained by Chad Brown, and his large stable is well-populated with Grade 1 turf winners. Mercante is one of four horses, only two currently racing, trained by Brian Knippenberg, who also is the long-time farm manager at Hermitage Farm outside of Louisville. Knippenberg manages the dual careers with his racehorses minutes away at Tyrone Training Center, formerly Skylight, in Oldham County. 

After a 16-month layoff, Mercante won a pair of allowance races while racing in anonymity at Turfway Park over the winter. The gelding and Knippenberg jumped into the spotlight when they won the Kentucky Cup Classic (G3) on the Jeff Ruby Steaks undercard.

“It’s a little different now. We’ve sort of shifted from Cinderella story to expectations,” Knippenberg said by phone. “Which is a little bit stressful, but it’s all because the horse has earned us that expectation. It’s really exciting. Obviously, he owes us nothing. So even taking a swing at a huge race like this is still pretty low pressure and a lot of fun. We’re having a blast doing all this. But the degree of expectation has certainly ticked up a little bit.”

Hall of Famer Bill Mott, trainer of reigning Kentucky Derby, Belmont and Travers Stakes (G1) winner Sovereignty, was Mercante’s original trainer at the racetrack. But in his work at Hermitage, Knippenberg gave Mercante his earliest pre-race training and had him when he was laid up with swelling in an ankle that kept flaring up, even as the horse showed no sign of lameness. Knippenberg said Mott suggested sending Mercante to Dr. Wes Sutter at Kentucky Equine Hospital in nearby Simpsonville.

It turned out “to be a thing called the manica,” Knippenberg said. “It’s a little C-shaped piece of the anatomy. The two big tendons in the forelimb, they’re not connecting to it. They’re basically a guide, like the keeper on a bridle, essentially. The manica had actually gotten a rough edge on it, so it kept rubbing, and the tendon would fill up all the time. The horse was never lame or anything, but it was swollen, and you don’t want to mess with a swollen horse

"When we were finally able to ultrasound him while he was actually swollen, Dr. Sutter saw this, and he was able to clean the rough edge off. The tendon was uninjured, it was just being irritated by this little device that holds it in place.”

Knippenberg admitted that he’d never heard of the manica. “I had to Google it,” he said. “I’ve actually told some other veterinarians about it, and they’re like, ‘I’ve got to go back to my anatomy book.’ Hat’s off to (Sutter) for solving that mystery.”

Knippenberg was getting Mercante prepared to return to Mott, a process where progress would be tempered by setbacks.

“It just got to taking forever,” he said. “I’d put a lot of time and effort into the horse, so I just asked Mr. Pollard, ‘What about letting me take a crack at this nice horse?’ And he said yes.

“… All through that, Mr. Pollard stood by me and stood by the horse. It’s wonderful for Carl Pollard. I feel like this horse deserves to be a great horse with all he’s been through. In my mind, he’s a great horse.”

Pollard spent a decade as Churchill Downs’ chairman of the board and owned Hermitage Farm from 1995, following the death of Hermitage Farm’s iconic owner and close friend Warner L. Jones Jr., until selling it in 2010 to Louisville power couple Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown. 

Mercante is the last foal of Pollard’s 2000 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner and 2-year-old champion Caressing. His sire is 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner. Neither horse ran on turf. Mercante gives Mott credit for originally putting Mercante on turf in 2023 after a trio of subpar dirt races. Racing in New York, Mercante won a maiden race and was third in two allowance races before being sidelined. In his first start for Knippenberg, on Nov. 2, 2024, he was a very close third at 20-1 in a Churchill Downs turf allowance before his racing moved on to Turfway’s synthetic surface.

The Turf Classic proved Mercante was a top turf horse and not just a synthetic specialist. 

“We just stayed in the paddock and watched the Turf Classic,” Knippenberg said. “I don’t know who was standing behind us, but somebody said, ‘OMG!’ behind me when we hit the top of the lane. And that’s how it felt, like he might actually do this. That kind of cemented this was all legitimate. And, of course, answering that with the Arlington win.”

Mercante captured Churchill Downs’s Arlington Stakes (G3) in late May after a stretch duel with heavy favorite Brilliant Berti, last year’s Gun Runner winner at Kentucky Downs and who will run in the Mint Millions. “That solidified this is really happening, and he’s really this good,” Knippenberg said.

Mercante is the 5-1 third choice in Nick Tammaro’s morning line for the 1 1/2-mile Kentucky Turf Cup. The 4-1 favorite is 2024 winner Grand Sonata, who was second in the Arlington Million (G1) at Colonial Downs. Regular rider Joe Ramos, who is among the leading riders at Horseshoe Indianapolis, will be back aboard Mercante.

Though Mercante finished fourth as the favorite in Ellis Park's $250,000 Kentucky Downs Preview Mint Millions on Aug. 2, checking in a total of 1 3/4 lengths behind long shot Beach Gold, his 99 Brisnet Speed Rating was among the highest of his career, topped by the 107 in his winning stakes debut in the Kentucky Cup Classic (G3). 

Mercante had scratched from Churchill Downs’s Wise Dan (C2) after “feeling a little cruddy for a few days,” Knippenberg said. “We were essentially coming into the Ellis race off a layoff. I think it still served its purpose in that we got a race in him, and really it’s probably the fastest race he’s ever run. He’s a little bit guilty of this, but in that race he was sort of racing the horse next to him but not racing the field. He does kind of like to eyeball the horse next to him. It was a crazy fast race. It was just a few ticks off the North American record for a mile on the grass.

“It kind of stinks not getting your picture taken after such a big performance, but I think it served its purpose.”

Knippenberg said it was a tough decision whether to go in the 1 1/2-mile Turf Cup or the Mint Millions at a mile.

“The distance in both those races is a limiting factor for him,” he said. “I don’t want to go a mile in 1:31 again like we did at Ellis. We’ve been working with him to relax off the pace, like in the Arlington when he relaxed off sort of a slow pace. We’ve been giving him long, slow gallops to get him off the bridle a little bit. I just picked the spot I thought gave us the best chance. There are some other horses that like to get to the lead in long races like that. If he can flank a horse and relax, I think he’ll be OK.”

Knippenberg, who began working at Hermitage in 1997, has trained racehorses along with his farm work since 2003, when he had one starter who earned $45. Since then, his small stable has hit the board regularly, including in 2020 when he went 1-for-29 but had nine seconds and six thirds. This is easily his best year, his eight wins from only 14 starts, his most in a season, and purse earnings of $671,878 marking his first time in six figures. Although most of that is from Mercante, the barn also features the Knippenberg-owned Sassy and Bold, a five-time winner from eight starts in 2025.

The Kentucky Turf Cup has a total purse of $2.5 million, which includes $1.5 million for Kentucky-breds.

“It’s hard to believe, hard to imagine,” Knippenberg said. “You do the math on back through the field, even, and it’s lucrative to go down there and take a crack. You get well-paid for splitting the field. Nobody goes down there to split the field, but it makes it an easy decision. If you’re going to try stretching him out this far, that’s the place to do it.”

The Kentucky Turf Cup winner also gets a fees-paid spot in the Breeders’ Cup Turf (G1). 

“There again, we’ve gone from hoping the horse can get back to the races to wild expectations,” Knippenberg said. “I don’t ever think past the upcoming race. But obviously it has those kinds of implications.”