Mystik Dan on McPeek's farm, could be pointed to 4-year-old campaign
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - While he hasn’t officially shut the door on running Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan again this year, trainer Ken McPeek said Thursday he is really focused on having him prepared for a good 4-year-old season.
Mystik Dan was the only horse to run in all three Triple Crown races, finishing second in the Preakness and eighth in the Belmont Stakes following his Kentucky Derby win. Mystik Dan remained in Saratoga for several weeks, but really wasn’t training, before McPeek decided to send him to Kentucky right before the Saratoga meet started.
Initially, McPeek planned to send the horse to Keeneland, but instead he sent him to his Magdalena Farm about 10 miles from Keeneland.
McPeek said at the farm Mystik Dan has a bigger stall than he would at the track, as well as access to rounds pens and paddocks.
“We wanted to give him a break but how big a break do you give him?” McPeek said. “Is 30 days enough? I had vets go over him, there’s nothing really wrong with him but we also sent him back to the track a couple of days and he was warming up a little stiffer than I like and I felt, well, maybe we’ll give him more time.”
The list of Grade 1 stakes for 3-year-olds shrinks as late summer and fall approach. Having ruled out the Travers on Aug. 24, the next Grade 1 opportunity is the Pennsylvania Derby on Sept. 21 at Parx. Even that is sounding less likely.
“I want him to be a better older horse,” McPeek said. “I’m not going to rush him back to try and chase anything. Trying to rush him back and make the Travers at a mile and a quarter off a layoff I felt I was pressing the envelope maybe a little too hard. He campaigned hard, he danced every dance, he proved he’s good, now he’s got to do it as an older horse. . . . I’d really rather see him fill out and grow up and go from a young man to a full man and then he’s going to have to take on some really nice older horses as an older horse.”
McPeek said in the coming weeks he would head back to Lexington, Ky., to look over Mystik Dan.
“I’m not thinking about anything other than just making sure he’s 1,000 percent when we go back,” McPeek said. “You could waffle between is 30 days enough, is 60 days enough, is 90 enough? I think the more time you give them the better shot you got of them being as good as they can be. In all big races you win, the horse has to take you there, you can’t take them there.”
McPeek said he is getting no pressure from the owners of Mystik Dan, which includes Lance Gasaway, Daniel Hamby, and 4G Racing.
“I’m lucky because this horse has some wonderful ownership, they want to do what’s right for the horse and they want to make sure he has every chance he can to be the best he can be,” McPeek said. “They put no pressure on me whatsoever.”
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