Silver Knott is lone wolf for Appleby in Secretariat Stakes

New Kent, Va.

Barn 14 at Colonial Downs has 60 stalls, but 59 of them are empty.

“If you see a horse over here, it’s our horse,” Chris Connett said Thursday morning.

Connett, a traveling assistant to Godolphin’s England-based trainer Charlie Appleby, had just made the nine-hour, overnight van trip from Saratoga with $1 million colt Silver Knott. The Lope de Vega colt will go from the solitude of the stable area’s eastern edge to join seven other 3-year-olds Saturday afternoon. That is when he tries for his first victory since the 2022 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf when he races in the Grade 2, $500,000 Secretariat Stakes.

“Charlie’s motto is always to give the horse the best chance possible,” Connett said. “Get down here nice and early and let him acclimatize himself to his surroundings.”

At 3-1, Silver Knott was made the second choice on the morning line behind trainer Graham Motion’s two-time stakes winner Nagirroc at 5-2. Jamie Spencer will fly in from England to replace injured Richard Mullen on Silver Knott, who could join Nagirroc to stalk pacesetter Mo Stash early in the two-turn, turf mile.

“There seems to be a bit of pace in the race,” Connett said. “We’ve obviously drawn (post) 1. If we can break handily and just get in a nice rhythm, I’m sure Jamie (Spencer) will be out to do that and pick up the pieces from there. He’s a tough horse, and we’d like to think he’s up to winning at this level.”

Cutting back from a fifth-place finish last month in the 1 1/4-mile Belmont Derby Invitational (G1), Silver Knott finds himself on a parallel path with his 3-year-old stablemate Mysterious Night. A Grade 1 winner at age 2, that homebred Dark Angel colt was entered in Friday’s National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes (G2) at Saratoga.

“We’re lucky to have two horses in a similar kind of category,” Connett said. “With the two races in close proximity, ... this is a nice opportunity to split them up.”

Of course Connett is hopeful the Hall of Fame Stakes actually will happen on Saratoga’s troubled turf course, which has not had a race run on it since a fatal breakdown Sunday.

“When I last spoke to the team up there, the worst case was they were going to leave the Hall of Fame on, but everything else will be off, potentially,” said Connett, who played down concerns about the Saratoga grass. “Obviously, with the amount of rain the track has had, but it’s a pretty quick-drying surface. The fact that there’s been no racing on it for the last week, really, it’s got to be good, and I’m sure the (New York Racing Association) officials will have it in tip-top form.”

Connett even suggested if the Hall of Fame were to be forced onto the dirt, Mysterious Night actually might give it a try.

“He’s galloped a couple of times over the main track and breezed pretty well,” he said, “so if it was to come off (the turf), you’d like to think he’d handle it.”

The grass at Colonial Downs has had no such trouble this summer. After some rain Thursday, it was expected to be dried by clear, hot days Friday and Saturday with a weekend high of 94 degrees. Going a mile on good or firm turf, Silver Knott is 2: 1-1-0, winning the Autumn Stakes (G3) last fall at Newmarket before finishing second by a nose to Victoria Road in the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland.

“He’s a horse that the team back home and Charlie all thought he could be in that kind of bracket of Nations Pride last year,” said Connett, referring to the Godolphin homebred colt who went to New York and won both the 2022 Saratoga Derby Invitational (G1) and the Jockey Club Derby Invitational (G3).

After an 11th-place result going a mile on soft ground in the 2,000 Guineas (G1) back home in England, Silver Knott finished a close third in the 1 1/8-mile Pennine Ridge on June 3 before his fade out of the money going longer in the Belmont Derby.

“He ran an OK race,” Connett said of the Pennine Ridge. “He stepped up in trip for the Belmont Derby and didn’t quite stay. So back in trip (for the one-mile Secretariat) I think is ideal. ... I know the class is down to a Grade 2, but there’s still going to be tough horses in there. We think from his work and off of that form, he should be a player.”

Loping through a shed-row walk about five hours after his arrival Thursday, Silver Knott looked relaxed from his long trip. Then he was led outside his otherwise empty barn to have a nosh on the lush grass.

He did not look too bothered by the absence of his stablemate Rebel’s Romance, who was taken out of consideration for Saturday’s Arlington Million after he clipped heels with a rival and dumped Mullen in the Bowling Green (G2) on July 30 at Saratoga. Connett said “a couple of niggly things” led Appleby to change his mind about sending the 5-year-old gelding with Silver Knott on the van to Colonial Downs.

So with Connett and groom Robbie Fitzpatrick, Silver Knott alone will represent Appleby on Saturday. He also will be when he gets his first look at his eighth different racecourse.

“We’ll get out to the track (Friday) morning and have a bit of a canter around and get a feel of it and then go out and do a little bit on Saturday morning as well,” Connett said. “Hopefully he’ll run a big race.”