Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile: McPeek gives Mystik Dan a maintenance half-mile
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Mystik Dan, the 2024 Kentucky Derby winner, on Friday at Churchill Downs worked a half-mile in 48.20 seconds in preparation for a start in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 1 at Del Mar.
Mystik Dan was ridden in the work by Francisco Arrieta, who rode him to victory in the Grade 2 Lukas Classic and who will ride him in the Dirt Mile.
“Just a nice maintenance half-mile, I told Francisco to hit all 12 [second furlongs], he hit that,” trainer Kenny McPeek said. “He worked fast last week. He didn’t need anything overdone today.”
The one-mile distance will be the shortest Mystik Dan has run all year, but McPeek noted how well he ran in the Lake Ouachita Stakes at Oaklawn when beaten a head by Saudi Crown as evidence that he can handle it.
“I like the two-turn mile out there as opposed to the one-turn mile, he’s well prepared for this,” McPeek said. “That race at Oaklawn he ran was a good race.”
Mystik Dan is expected to stand stud at Airdrie in Kentucky in 2026, but McPeek said it’s not set in stone that this will be his last race.
Also on Friday, McPeek worked his other Breeders’ Cup starter, Blackout Time, for the Juvenile. That horse went a half-mile 49.40 seconds, a work that didn’t go as planned as Blackout Time’s workmate, So Special broke off too slow, according to McPeek.
“The workout was a little clumsy, the rider on the workmate went off slow, he was being yelled at by Blackout Time’s rider Manny Esquivel to go, go, it got a little confusing breaking off,” McPeek said. “We would have liked to have seen him got a little quicker the first eighth, but it was a solid half with a nice long gallop-out.”
Irad Ortiz Jr. will ride Blackout Time in the Juvenile.
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