Knob Creek Manhattan 2015: Results, Order of Finish and Prize Money Payouts

The Grade 1 Knob Creek Manhattan had a tough task in front of it to live up to the hype generated by the Met Mile in the previous race, but, to the runners' credit, the race turned out to be a great one.

The race has proven to be a quality one over the years and has produced winners like Point of Entry (2013) and Gio Ponti (2009), among others. Unlike those two, this year's winner was a bit of an unknown coming into the contest.

Running for the majority share of a $1 million purse, Slumber took home a victory in this year's 1 1/4 mile race. Behind him, Big Blue Kitten and Legendary crossed the line as the last two in-the-money finishers.

An outstanding race capped off the 147th Belmont Stakes undercard, so let's take a second to look at how this year's Manhattan shook out.

Position	Horse	Trainer	Jockey
1	Slumber	Chad Brown	Irad Ortiz Jr.
2	Big Blue Kitten	Chad Brown	Joe Bravo
3	Legendary	Niall Saville	Edgar Prado
4	Finnegan's Wake	Peter Miller	Victor Espinoza
5	Magic Artist	Wolfgang Figge	Christian Demuro
6	War Dancer	Bill Mott	Jose Lezcano
7	Twilight Eclipse	Thomas Albertrani	Javier Castellano
8	Hyper	Chad Brown	Julien Leparoux
9	Jack Milton	Todd Pletcher	Corey Nakatani
10	Biz The Nurse	Thomas Albertrani	Joel Rosario
11	General a Rod	Todd Pletcher	John Velazquez

Horse	Win	Place	Show
Slumber	$30.20	$12.40	$8.60
Big Blue Kitten	--	$5.10	$3.80
Legendary	--	--	$9.70

Recap

Trainer Chad Brown had himself a day, and it was all made in one race. The New York-based trainer had three entries in this year's running of the Manhattan, and two of them—Slumber and Big Blue Kitten—finished first and second, respectively.

Legendary and War Dancer broke first from the gate, and the duo jumped out to the first- and second-place positions. War Dancer held the lead through much of the race, leading the group through a quarter in 24.97 seconds, a half in 50.34 seconds, and 3/4 in one minute, 14.52 seconds.

Slumber, the eventual winner, spent most of the race running a good four lengths back of the leaders but saved ground running along the rail before being gifted a huge gap to run through as the pack entered the stretch run.

Once he got that gap, there was no looking back as he barreled across the finish line as one of the longest shots on the board.

The post-time favorite Big Blue Kitten was the victim of a poor ride from jockey Joe Bravo. The horse broke last from the race and was bottled up until the group completely straightened out for the stretch run.

When they finally found room to run, the Kitten's Joy offspring looked much the best, gobbling up ground in the stretch run, en route to a second-place finish.

Complaints about Bravo's performance aboard Big Blue Kitten aside, Slumber ran a fantastic race, sitting well off the pace with Irad Ortiz Jr. biding his time before making a big move at the top of the stretch.

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