2023 Kentucky Derby: McPeek's 3-year-olds coming alive
As the calendar turned to February 2022, trainer Kenny McPeek kept answering his phone to find a racing reporter covering the Kentucky Derby Trail on the line.
Smile Happy had won both his starts at age 2, including an eye-catching score in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes. Tiz the Bomb had been second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf and was going back to dirt, where he’d won an Ellis Park maiden race by 14 1/4 lengths the summer before. Rattle N Roll was preparing for his first start since a 4 1/2-length win in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity. In the Feb. 18 Daily Racing Form Derby Watch, Smile Happy was rated No. 1, while Rattle N Roll held down the 10th spot.
McPeek’s first Kentucky Derby runner, Tejano Run, finished second in 1995. Not much came of five subsequent Derby starters. A year ago, McPeek looked poised for his first run at the Derby since 2013. Then Rattle N Roll disappointed in three preps and didn’t make the race. Smile Happy’s comeback second behind Epicenter in the Risen Star radiated promise but he took a step back in the Blue Grass and came home a tepid ninth in the Derby. Tiz the Bomb excelled over Turfway’s Tapeta but could do no better than eighth in the Derby.
A year later, first of February 2023, and the McPeek 3-year-olds idled in shadows along some ignored spur of the Derby Trail. That changed last weekend, when Sun Thunder at 16-1 stepped forward and finished a close second in the Risen Star, which he led at the stretch call. Earlier on the Fair Grounds card, Denington, leaping to a new level with little warning as an 8-1 shot in a seven-horse field, won a first-level dirt-route allowance that included talent comparable to the Risen Star’s.
:: KENTUCKY DERBY 2023: Derby Watch, point standings, prep schedule, news, and more
Sun Thunder knocks on the door of Daily Racing Form’s Derby Watch top 20 this week. Denington can’t be too far down the list, and Saturday at Oaklawn, McPeek runs another longshot, Frosted Departure, in another Derby prep, the Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn. Earlier on the card, he starts a maiden named Seeking Unity, about whom McPeek talks in glowing terms.
“Every year is different, and I know the ups and downs, how topsy turvy the thing can be. I don’t get too high or low with any of it,” McPeek said in a phone interview.
The shortest morning-line prices in the Rebel – Reincarnate, Verifying, and Giant Mischief – have combined to race 12 times. Frosted Departure has made 10 starts. This should surprise no one. McPeek runs his horses regularly rather than sitting back, breezing away, and targeting a single spot. This can lead to a modest record (Frosted Departure is 10-3-0-2) but also true race fitness and a chance to develop professionalism through race experience.
“I’ve never been one that’s scared to run,” McPeek said.
McPeek will look past apparently poor performances if he believes in a horse. Frosted Departure lost by more than a combined 50 lengths in the Breeders’ Futurity and Street Sense last October. McPeek pushed on. The colt won the six-furlong Renaissance Stakes at Oaklawn before stretching back to two turns in the Southwest, where he pressed the strong pace of divisional leader Arabian Knight and held well to finish third.
“He’s a tough little horse. We started to pigeonhole him a little as a sprinter, but we wanted to give him one more chance to route,” McPeek said. “He had a tough draw [post 11] this weekend, and if he’s ever going to be a horse to compete in these big races, he needs to rate.
“He doesn’t like a lot of dirt hitting him and traffic. He’ll have to find a level he hasn’t found yet, but he did put in probably the best work of his career last Saturday.”
Seeking Unity, a two-race maiden coming off a solid second at Fair Grounds, is the 6-5 favorite in race 4. McPeek has high hopes. “This horse is going to find himself in those Triple Crown kind of races soon, too.”
McPeek either breeds and raises or buys and breaks the majority of young horses he trains, but Sun Thunder, a $400,000 yearling purchase sired by Into Mischief, came into his barn last summer at Saratoga.
“I wasn’t party to his purchase,” McPeek said. “This colt has jumped through a bunch of hoops. When we first got him, he was extremely soft. He struggled in the beginning even just getting into a strong gallop every day. He’s improved by leaps and bounds. He’s a powerful horse to be around now. He has one of the deepest shoulders on him I’ve seen. The sky’s the limit for him.”
Both Sun Thunder and Denington likely run back March 25 in the Louisiana Derby. Denington, starting for the eighth time, racing on Lasix for the first time, and with blinkers removed after a one-race experiment, got a great trip under Corey Lanerie, swooping late to run down promising Cagliostro last weekend.
“He’s kind of a heavier horse who needs the running. He’s got the foundation. Can he run back to that race and improve on it? We’ll try,” McPeek said.
It’s coming on to March, and in a winter of lower expectations, McPeek’s 3-year-olds are rising higher than last year. Almost 30 years ago, Tejano Run fought a lung infection all winter in New Orleans and had touchy feet. Then he ran second in the Derby. Smile Happy, so full of promise, developed bone bruising in his lower legs at just the wrong time.
“I know that things can go wrong and go right just like that. There’s only one success story on the Kentucky Derby trail,” McPeek said.
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