SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Kentucky Oaks and Acorn winner Thorpedo Anna will be going for her third consecutive Grade 1 victory when she runs in Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga. If she gets it – or maybe more precisely how she gets it – could determine if she steps out of her gender group and attempts the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers against males here Aug. 24.
Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan is in light training at trainer Kenny McPeek’s Magdalena Farm and won’t make the Travers and is questionable to run again this year. Running Thorpedo Anna against the boys is something McPeek – the first trainer in 72 years to win the Derby and Oaks in the same year – said he has contemplated. Lady Rotha (1915) is the last filly to win the Travers. Only five have tried since.
Asked if a powerful performance Saturday would tempt him to run Thorpedo Anna in the Travers, McPeek said, “It would. The history of it. We’ll see. She needs to jump through this hoop and she needs to jump through it well.”
While Thorpedo Anna has been dominant in all three of her wins this year, the CCA Oaks is no gimme. The field includes Grade 1 winners Candied and Leslie’s Rose, both trained by Todd Pletcher, as well as Intricate, the only filly to have beaten Thorpedo Anna in her six-race career.
“They don’t give Grade 1s away,” McPeek said. “They make you work for them.”
Thorpedo Anna hasn’t had to work that hard this year. She came off a four-month layoff to win the Grade 2 Fantasy at Oaklawn by four lengths. Five weeks later, she went gate to wire in the slop and won the Kentucky Oaks by 4 3/4 lengths over Just F Y I, the 2023 2-year-old filly champion.
In the Grade 1 Acorn, Just F Y I changed tactics and went to the lead and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. was content to let Thorpedo Anna sit second. Thorpedo Anna zipped past Just F Y I at the quarter pole and galloped away from Leslie’s Rose to get the victory. Power Squeeze, who finished third, came back to win the Grade 3 Delaware Oaks.
Thorpedo Anna has remained in Saratoga and has had four works over the Oklahoma training track.
“She’s hitting on all cylinders like she has been,” McPeek said. “We’re as confident as ever. Look, we all know there are no givens.”
It looks like Thorpedo Anna could be the controlling speed from post 3. Leslie’s Rose, who was hustled away from the gate in the Acorn before being eased back by John Velazquez, looks like the only other potential pace player in the compact field.
Leslie’s Rose won the Grade 1 Ashland from a stalking position. She finished next-to-last in the Kentucky Oaks, showing the same disdain for a sloppy Churchill Downs track in the afternoon that she had earlier that week in the morning, according to Pletcher.
Leslie’s Rose actually made two moves in the Acorn, ultimately coming back to finish second by 1 1/4 lengths over Power Squeeze. With seemingly no other speed in the field, Leslie’s Rose could be the only one to not let Thorpedo Anna have things her own way up front.
“You gotta try to balance it out so that you’re not coming out of your own comfort zone while not letting the favorite get away with easy fractions,” Pletcher said. “That’s going to be up to Johnny to figure that out.”
Pletcher and Velazquez have teamed up to win five runnings of the CCA Oaks. Pletcher has won this race eight times overall.
Pletcher also sends out Candied who at 2 won the Grade 1 Alcibiades and finished third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. She is coming off a win against older females in the Lady’s Secret at Monmouth. The filly she beat by 4 1/2 lengths, Honor D Lady, came back to win the Grade 2 Delaware Handicap.
Intricate, a daughter of Gun Runner trained by Brendan Walsh, can lay claim as the only horse to have beaten Thorpedo Anna, that being a 5 1/4-length score last November in Grade 2 Golden Rod Stakes at Churchill Downs.
After finishing second in the Grade 2 Rachel Alexandra Stakes at Fair Grounds in February, Intricate finished fifth in the Fair Grounds Oaks on March 23. She emerged from that race with mucus in her throat, which needed to be cleared up.
Intricate came off a layoff to finish second in the Monomoy Girl Stakes at Churchill.
“As she showed in her comeback run, we cleared everything up and she looks like she’s back doing good,” Walsh said. “My filly is gritty, and she never ceases to surprise me. Thorpedo Anna has turned into a really, really good filly. She was very impressive in the Acorn, but we’ll give it a shot.”
Barbratina, winner of a first-level allowance June 1 at Churchill for trainer Brad Cox is now with George Weaver. In her only other graded stakes try, she finished sixth in the Grade 3 Gazelle.
The Coaching Club goes as race 11 on a 12-race card that begins at 12:35 p.m.
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