Zipse: Kentucky Oaks-bound Thorpedo Anna is in fine fettle
On paper, Oaklawn’s Grade 3 Fantasy Stakes looked like an evenly matched affair. When the race was run, however, Thorpedo Anna turned it into a one-filly show. You never know for sure how they are going to come back after a long layoff, which is especially true of young fillies, but the Kenny McPeek-trained filly made the transition from 2 to 3 look like a walk in the park.
With just under five weeks to go until the $1.5 million Kentucky Oaks (G1) at Churchill Downs, Thorpedo Anna has announced herself as a top contender for the nation’s most prestigious race for 3-year-old fillies.
Saturday's big victory in Arkansas ensured Thorpedo Anna a place in the starting gate on the first Friday in May. As the nation’s richest prep for the Kentucky Oaks, the Fantasy rewarded 100 qualifying points to the impressive winner.
Breaking from the outside post in the field of 10 Kentucky Oaks hopefuls, the daughter of Fast Anna made it look easy. She broke sharply under her regular rider Brian J. Hernandez Jr. and angled smoothly toward the inside so as not to be hung out wide on the first turn.
Comfortably stalking on the outside in third down the backstretch, the dark bay filly always looked like a winner as she moved to engage the leaders on the far turn with very little encouragement from her pilot. Turning for home, she quickly powered clear and coasted down the lane an easy-as-she-pleased four-length winner of the $750,000 affair.
McPeek has become well known for selecting inexpensive fillies at the sales and developing them into major winners. The best example is Swiss Skydiver, whom the trainer picked out for $35,000 as a yearling. A few years later, she retired a Preakness winner, with better than $2.2 million in the bank.
In similar fashion, Thorpedo Anna was purchased by McPeek for $40,000 at the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall yearling sale. Owned in partnership by Brookdale Racing, Mark Edwards, Judy Hicks and Sherri McPeek's Magdalena Racing, the filly out of the Uncle Mo mare Sataves made a splash as soon as she made it to the races.
That career debut came Oct. 26 at Keeneland, where she faced a field of fillies who sold for $50,000 or less. Sent off at odds of 4-1, she came from off the pace to storm by her competition, winning the seven-furlong affair by 8 1/2-lengths.
Next came a one-mile allowance race 15 days later at Churchill Downs, and this time the word was out. Pounded down to 2-5 favoritism, Thorpedo Anna responded in kind and ran off to win that race by nine lengths.
Striking while the iron was hot, only 15 more days passed before her next start. Back under the famed twin spires of Churchill Downs once again, she was made a heavy favorite for her two-turn and graded-stakes debut.
That late-November afternoon turned out to be her only career defeat to date, however, as she lacked her normal turn of foot and had to settle for second-place money in the Golden Rod (G2).
Coming out of the defeat with a minor hip problem, she was put on the shelf for a rest. Resuming morning works at Fair Grounds this season, it’s evident McPeek had her ready for her triumphant reappearance at Oaklawn Park on Saturday.
At this point, the Kentucky Oaks looks like a relatively wide-open race. Tarifa, who has won two straight stakes races at Fair Grounds for trainer Brad Cox, could be the favorite, but others might have something to say about who the filly to beat will be.
Thorpedo Anna has to be high on that list. It is no easy task to win the filly classic with the benefit of only one prep race, but no sophomore filly has impressed me more on this year’s trail than she did on Saturday.
After just over four months away, Thorpedo Anna came back with a big performance, and she did it with confident ease. Now it will be up to McPeek to see whether she can run back to that performance on May 3, or maybe even take another step forward. If she does, look out.