McPeek 2-year-olds on fire

Last racing week at Churchill Downs saw trainer Kenny McPeek unleash a flurry of 2-year-old winners, the best of whom might well have been Thorpedo Anna.

After debuting at Keeneland on Oct. 26 with an 8 1/2-length win going seven furlongs in a restricted maiden race, Thorpedo Anna returned Nov. 10 at Churchill in a one-turn mile first-level allowance race and won by nine, her Beyer Speed Figure rising from 76 to 85. It will not take long for the filly to make her stakes debut.

“She didn’t hardly blow out a match after her first run, and it was another gallop around there, a paid workout, the other day,” McPeek said Monday. “The window of opportunity to make her a graded stakes winner is right there, so we plan on bringing her back in the Golden Rod.”

The $400,000 Golden Rod, at 1 1/16 miles around two turns, is Nov. 25. Thorpedo Anna, by Fast Anna, was purchased at auction for a tenth of the Golden Rod’s purse.

This past Sunday, McPeek won a 5 1/2-furlong maiden race with second-time starter Mystik Dan, who cut back from his 6 1/2-furlong debut and was timed in 1:03.27, a raw time that yielded a robust 94 Beyer.

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“He’s just ultra-fast. That might be the fastest 5 1/2 furlongs I’ve had a horse run,” McPeek said.

Mystik Dan, by Goldencents, could attempt to stretch that speed out to a two-turn mile in the Jan. 1 Smarty Jones at Oaklawn Park.

McPeek also sent out the American Pharoah filly I’m a Mess to win a two-turn maiden race Nov. 11, earning a 74 Beyer, and ran one-two in the second division of that maiden filly route, Sistina Chapel holding off Extremely Gruntled. That race was slower, Sistina Chapel earning a 68 Beyer.

One 2-year-old who won’t race again until she’s 3 is V V’s Dream, easy winner of the Pocahontas in September and second to Candied in the Grade 1 Alcibiades at Keeneland before finishing a distant third as the 1-5 favorite in the Rags to Riches on Oct. 29. McPeek said V V’s Dream came out of her last start dehydrated and is getting some time at McPeek’s Magdalena Farm.

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