Breeders' Cup Distaff: McPeek looks to cap big year with elusive BC win
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Trainer Kenny McPeek has been trying forever to win a Breeders’ Cup race, which is longer than it took his 3-year-old filly Thorpedo Anna to secure a clear path in her final prep.
The filly finally got there in the Grade 1 Cotillion Stakes, her fifth consecutive graded victory against fillies. As for McPeek, whose first Breeders’ Cup starter was in 1994, he has started 37 runners in the BC and still seeks his first win. It could happen Nov. 2 at Del Mar.
Thorpedo Anna opens as the 9-5 early favorite for the BC Distaff by Daily Racing Form, a position she may or may not hold. Idiomatic, the 2023 Distaff winner, is the 2-1 second choice by DRF, pending her performance in the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes on Sunday at Keeneland.
Thorpedo Anna or Idiomatic, one or the other, is likely to start favored in Distaff. It is a big gap back to the rest. Raging Sea is 6-1 third choice after upsetting Idiomatic in the Grade 1 Personal Ensign at Saratoga. Awesome Result, undefeated in seven starts in Japan, is the 8-1 fourth choice.
While a Distaff repeat by Idiomatic may be familiar to trainer Brad Cox, a 10-time BC winner, Thorpedo Anna gives McPeek his best BC chance. He is often close – seven seconds and 10 thirds. This time, for the first time in a BC race still run, McPeek could enter with a favorite.
“I think it’d be the first one I’ve ever had,” McPeek said this week from his Kentucky base. “For as many starts as I’ve had, I have [one of the] highest in-the-money percentages, but haven’t won a race. It’s very unusual. It’s like, how’d that happen?”
McPeek trainees hit the board at a 45 percent rate in Breeders’ Cup races (17 of 37). Among trainers with at least 20 BC starters, the rate is second only to Charlie Appleby’s 65 percent.
McPeek’s lone BC favorite was Atigun, third in the 2012 Marathon, a race since discontinued.
But 2024 is a season of firsts for McPeek and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr., who teamed this spring to sweep the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks with Mystik Dan and Thorpedo Anna. The colt went on hiatus, while Thorpedo Anna marched on. She has won five straight in races for fillies, including a Cotillion victory that was not pretty. At 1-10 odds, she barely got there.
“I told Brian [beforehand] the only way he’ll lose is if somebody steals it on the lead, or they box you in, hold you in, hold you there, and you can’t get there quick enough,” McPeek said. “It was a very ugly-run race for her.”
Thorpedo Anna was coming off a gut-wrenching runner-up finish against colts in the Grade 1 Travers, and McPeek’s worries were well-founded. The pace was slow, Thorpedo Anna was boxed in by rivals and held there. Trapped just off the pace, she finally got out at the top of the lane and rallied to defeat front-runner Gun Song by a neck. Thorpedo Anna never felt the whip.
“It just shows how damn good she is, she got there anyway,” McPeek said.
Thorpedo Anna, 7 for 9 with two seconds, is scheduled for her first post-Cotillion work Saturday at Saratoga, where she will breeze every weekend until she ships to Del Mar on Oct. 27.
Who and what will be waiting for McPeek and Thorpedo Anna? Foremost is the imposing 5-year-old mare Idiomatic. Something else might be waiting for McPeek in the Distaff – his first Breeders’ Cup victory.
◗ Idiomatic faces five rivals in the Spinster, including 3-year-old filly Candied and the older fillies and mares Loved, Honor D Lady, Bow Draw, and Occult. Raging Sea is expected to start favored in the Grade 2 Beldame Stakes on Sunday at Belmont Park.
◗ Prominent females who are still racing but not likely to contest the Distaff, according to their trainers or owners, include Cotillion runner-up Gun Song; Grade 2 Locust Grove Stakes winner Musical Mischief and runner-up Corningstone; and Grade 2 Zenyatta Stakes winner Sugar Fish.
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