SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – To hear trainer Kenny McPeek tell it, the 4-year-old Thorpedo Anna is “every bit” as good as the 3-year-old Thorpedo Anna, the one who won 6 of 7 starts and was crowned 2024 Horse of the Year.
If true, Thorpedo Anna should win Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Personal Ensign Stakes at Saratoga. If not, the Personal Ensign, which drew a field of seven, becomes a wide-open affair.
Thorpedo Anna is 3 for 4 this year with two stakes wins at Oaklawn – including the Grade 1 Apple Blossom in April – and a three-length victory against four modest rivals in the Grade 2 Fleur de Lis on June 28 at Churchill Downs.
In between, Thorpedo Anna finished last in the Grade 1 La Troienne, the worst race of her 14-race career. McPeek maintains that Thorpedo Anna got bumped by an outside runner going into the first turn, and he believes that ultimately played a role in that non-effort.
“The first turn they crushed her,” McPeek said. “For whatever reason, she didn’t finish up. She hasn’t shown anything like that since. What could go wrong went wrong.”
Thorpedo Anna bounced back with a workmanlike three-length victory in the Fleur de Lis. Thorpedo Anna needed extra time when she first got up to Saratoga, but her most recent workout, a half-mile in 48.19 seconds, with a solid finish of 23.85 and a good gallop out, was her best of the summer.
“I see her as being very workmanlike and she’s been ultra-consistent this summer,” McPeek said. “She loves it here and is very happy here.”
Thorpedo Anna trains almost exclusively on the Oklahoma training track. Thursday, McPeek brought Thorpedo Anna to the main track, having her school in the paddock for 15 minutes before going out for a gallop. Thorpedo Anna was tough for exercise rider Bobby Eversole to handle as she wanted to do more than Eversole would allow. Thorpedo Anna ran off with Eversole for about an eighth of a mile.
“He was afraid she was going to run off with him,” McPeek said. “He should have let her gallop away from there and she would have come back to him.”
McPeek is thrilled with the outside draw for Thorpedo Anna, who again will be ridden by Brian Hernandez Jr.
“I like the draw,” he said. “I’m really happy to not be tucked inside and have to wiggle our way out of all that.”
There should be ample pace in the Personal Ensign, a race that offers a fees-paid berth into the Breeders’ Cup Distaff on Nov. 1 at Del Mar. Randomized, coming off a front-running victory in the Grade 3 Molly Pitcher at Monmouth and breaking from the rail, and Dazzling Move, who has set the pace in three consecutive stakes – all second-place finishes – are the primary speed. If Bernietakescharge runs here – she was cross-entered in Friday’s Yaddo Stakes for New York-breds – that brings more pace to the party.
Pace would certainly help Raging Sea, Dorth Vader, and Leslie’s Rose. Raging Sea took advantage of a hot pace to win last year’s Personal Ensign. She won this year’s Grade 1 La Troienne but is coming off well-beaten third-place finishes in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps and Grade 2 Shuvee.
Chad Brown, trainer of Raging Sea and Randomized, said the slop was likely the cause for Raging Sea’s poor effort in the Phipps. He’s hoping that heat was the issue in the Shuvee.
“I’m reaching a little bit,” Brown said.
Dorth Vader won the Phipps here in the slop. She was fourth in the Molly Pitcher, after looming up like she was going to fare better.
“She looms like she’s got a ton of horse and she hangs,” trainer George Weaver said. “She did it for [trainer Michael] Yates before me in a couple of spots. We thought we had it figured out this year because in the La Troienne she was running to the wire and she was running through the wire in the Ogden Phipps. We know she can legitimately run a mile and an eighth, but she’s got to go over there and do it. She’s doing really well.”
Leslie’s Rose, three times beaten by Thorpedo Anna last year, is coming off a 3 3/4-length victory in the Shuvee Stakes here July 18.
“Maybe we’re rounding back into form, maybe some of the other ones aren’t at their best at the moment or maybe they are, we don’t know,” said Todd Pletcher, trainer of Leslie’s Rose. “But we need to be at our best and see how she does, but we do feel good about the way she’s progressed here.”
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