With Belmont Park's Fall meet set to get underway Saturday, it's always fun to look over the schedule of stakes races.
Being supposedly anal-retentive -- one of the things that caught my attention was this:
According to both Wiki and the NYRA website ...
Quote:
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The KNICKERBOCKER Handicap derives its name from the fictional character, Diedrich Knickerbocker, in Washington Irving's "Knickerbocker History of New York," a mock history of the colony of New Netherland (also a New York Brewery).
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There originally was a Knickerbocker Handicap run for about two decades at Empire City in New York.
However, the history of the Knickerbocker starts in 1960 according to all reference sources.
I had assumed the resurrected version of the race was named after the colt Knickerbocker, who as a 3-year-old, won the 1939 Met Mile under the feathery light weight assignment of just 100lbs.
It was a great upset as Knickerbocker opened at 60/1 odds, held at 60/1 odds for most of the betting, and closed at 40/1.
It was only the 3rd start of his career.
Knickerbocker won his debut at better than 8/1 -- he won his 3yo return race at 8/1 -- before upsetting the Met in start #3.
One way or another -- it's a good name for a handicap race and it will be run at Belmont next month.