Life Is Good Dominates, Knicks Go Places, Stilleto Boy Shows

The highly touted four-year-old Life Is Good, with Irad Ortiz in the irons, bested the only slightly more highly touted Knicks Go to take the 2022 Pegasus World Cup and in so doing, he denied Knicks Go’s pre-retirement bid to win the race twice. Life Is Good, who went off at slightly better odds, paid $3.60 to win, Knicks Go paid a disheartening but not unexpectedly low $2.10 to place. Stilleto Boy knifed his way into show, paying $2.80. The $2 exacta with the two favorites provides a window on the low payouts that such a match race within the race creates, at $4.80.

Life Is Good had created considerable trackside chatter in training, putting up some hot fractions and generally becoming the man about town, all of which was precisely and presciently noted by our own Bluegrass Wise Man in this piece earlier today, that, by taking the race, Life Is Good could usher in a metaphorical passing of the mantle of a nationally renowned Thoroughbred as Knicks Go heads on toward retirement. That, among other things, seems to have been accomplished today. The race more than erases any doubts about the relatively lightly-raced Life Is Good. His earnings, thanks to the Stronachs, have been increased by orders of magnitude, and he’s now been certified as a force on the sport’s big stages.

For his part, Knicks Go’s “loss” of having merely placed in one of the sport’s richest races doesn’t affect his record, his hard-earned oceans of regard, or, heading into the halcyon days at stud, his bookings. His trainer Brad Cox was unafraid of having drawn the rail in this race, and he’s generally unafraid of Knicks Go’s golden future. Knicks Go has little for which to apologize, and much to celebrate.