Knicks Go (No. 10) finished 2nd in the Sentient Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Down, the United States, on Nov. 2.

KRA Chairman Kim Nak-soon looks at the Knicks Go. (Photos: KRA)

The year 2018 was remembered as a year in which the Korea Racing Authority (KRA) had significant achievements on the global stage. The global standing of Korea’s horse racing is getting higher as the Knicks Go, owned by the KRA, fished second in a global competition.

KRA Chairman Kim Nak-soon announced the KRA’s achievements on the global stage on Dec. 6.

The KRA’s long-term program, dubbed “K-NICKS,” to improve Korea’s horse racing and breeding stock has begun to pay off, proving its technology power on the global stage three years after it made its debut.

The Knicks Go placed 2nd in the Sentient Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Down, the United States, on Nov. 2. The two-year-old colt is being nurtured as a thoroughbred, using genetic technology under the Korean breeding program last December, which was launched in 2015.

The Breeders’ Cup in which the Knicks Go participated is referred to a “Racing Olympics” in which only 0.2 percent of two-year racing horses newly bred in the United States could compete in the competition.

The price of the Knicks Go goes up to over an estimated 2 billion won, more than 26 times its purchasing price. The Knicks Go is going to participate in the 2019 Kentucky Derby & Oaks, to be held in May in the United States. If the colt wins, the price of the racehorse is forecast to jump to levels of an estimated 10 billion won.

The KRA plans to nurture the Knicks Go as a homegrown thoroughbred and enter the overseas exporting market.

For instance, the Deep Impact, being raised as a thoroughbred in Japan, ranked about 74.4 billion won in yearly earnings in 2016. The case indicates the probability that introducing prominent stallions is expected to not only improve homegrown racehorse breeding, but also contribute to the development of the national economy by increasing income of racehorse breeding farms.

In June, the KRA exported homegrown racehorses to the United Kingdom, the world’s horse racing industry powerhouse. It takes on significance in a historical viewpoint that Korea has reverse exported racehorse to the UK, which launched a racehorse competition around 17th Century for the first time in the world.

The step brought the number of countries Korea has exported homegrown racehorses to this year to five, including New Zealand and Spain.

The KRA launched a project to telecast live Korean racehorse competitions in Singapore in 2014. The project has been expanded to cover four continents – Asia, Oceania, Europe and the Americas.

The countries in which Korean racehorse competitions are telecast live overseas, include Malaysia, France, Australia and Hong Kong. The KRA earned about 62.9 billion won in revenues in 2017 from overseas telecasting from eight countries.