McPeek tells how Skydiver was backed into Whitney corner

Kenny McPeek is clearly a man of conviction. But he also chooses his fights carefully.

Does he see the need for Swiss Skydiver to get another shot at Letruska after she played hurt and lost the April running of the Apple Blossom Handicap (G1)?

“No, none whatsoever,” he said this week. “We don’t look it that way at all. Letruska is very good. She’s going to have her path. We’re going to have ours. If they meet somewhere along the line, then they meet. If they don’t, they don’t.”

Swiss Skydiver’s path was suddenly altered this summer by an isolated quarantine. That is why McPeek is sending her against male rivals for the third time. It worked last year when the Daredevil filly was an eye-opening second in the Blue Grass (G2) and a historic winner in the Preakness. Now McPeek hopes it will work Saturday in the $1 million Whitney Stakes (G1) at Saratoga.

“If she’s able to compete and be first or second against this group, then perhaps we come back (against males Sept. 4) in the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1),” McPeek told Horse Racing Nation and the Ron Flatter Racing Pod. “If she doesn’t handle the colts, then we can go back into the Personal Ensign” (G1) on Aug. 28 against fillies and mares.

McPeek is not forgetting the circumstances that forced him to remap Swiss Skydiver’s path. Through his attorney Andrew Mollica, McPeek has called on the New York State Gaming Commission to publicly explain why he was not allowed to anticipate clearing quarantine so he could enter Swiss Skydiver and other horses into races as soon as restrictions were lifted last weekend.

“I understand it’s in the best interest of the horses and the industry to quarantine these horses 21 days,” McPeek said. “But at the end of the 21 days, there’s been what I’d call chaos about when we could run. We were originally told we could run Aug. 1 (last Sunday), so we entered for Aug. 1. When we made those entries, they denied those entries, because they said we were in quarantine.”

(Editor’s note: McPeek clarified Friday that the “chaos” he referred to did not impact Swiss Skydiver but, instead, other horses in his stable. A headline accompanying an early posting of this story did not accurately reflect that.)

That isolation was caused by a horse in the care of trainer Jorge Abreu testing positive for the equine herpesvirus in barn 86, where McPeek has Swiss Skydiver and others from his stable. Although none of his horses got sick, McPeek was left to hurry up and wait.

“I’ve been disappointed in the way it unfolded,” he said, saying one set of rules applied to his horses, but another set is put forward for foreign shippers. “They come into the U.S. (Department of Agriculture) quarantine barn. They enter (races) while they are in quarantine to run when they get out of it. It doesn’t make any sense that we’ve been tacked on an extra five days. We were allowed to train at the end of the 21 days in the general population with the rest of the horses, so there’s a contradiction there.”

The New York Racing Association and the state Gaming Commission, who act independently of one another, have not openly discussed the decision-making process that led to Swiss Skydiver and McPeek’s other horses being put off in the entry process. That led to Mollica’s formal demand for a hearing and an explanation.

It was just another obstacle in a year full of them for Swiss Skydiver. That is not necessarily a calendar year, either.

After she became just the sixth filly to win the Preakness, she stumbled out of the gate at the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Distaff and finished a distant seventh to Monomoy Girl. Both still ended up with Eclipse Awards for their age groups.

Swiss Skydiver’s 4-year-old campaign began last winter with an impressive victory in the Beholder Mile (G1) at Santa Anita. Then she looked flat at Oaklawn finishing third to Letruska and Monomoy Girl in the Apple Blossom.

“She had had what we felt was a minor infection a little behind the ankle on the Sunday prior to the Apple Blossom,” McPeek said. “We treated her with a light antibiotic thinking that would draw it down, and then Monday was worse. So we treated her with a more aggressive antibiotic. By Tuesday it had gone down. I basically made the decision to go, and in hindsight I wished I hadn’t. I’ll take the bullet there.”

McPeek tried two more times since to start Swiss Skydiver. She was supposed to go June 5 in the Ogden Phipps (G1) on the Belmont Stakes undercard. That would have given her another shot at Letruska, who wound up winning the race. But Swiss Skydiver was sidelined.

“She had a little shipping fever going (from Kentucky) to New York,” McPeek said.

Then came the quarantine, which kept Swiss Skydiver out of the Shuvee Stakes (G3) on July 25, when she would have been heavily favored against a field that is not nearly as loaded as the one Saturday that features high-stepping males like Knicks Go, Maxfield and Silver State.

“Look, last year the ball bounced our way every step of it,” McPeek said. “To expect that to happen every year is unreasonable. This is always a game of adjustments. When horses are right and things go right, there’s a lot of ways to lose a race and only one way to win one. She’s had a little adversity this year. It’s nothing major. Now it’s time to get back on track.”

The same applies to other McPeek horses who were caught in the swirl of the quarantine.

* After being denied entry into the Jim Dandy (G2) last weekend, Ohio Derby (G3) runner-up King Fury switches to the turf for Saturday’s Saratoga Derby (G1) as a prep for his return to the dirt Aug. 28 in the Travers (G1).

* When his three-time graded-stakes winner Crazy Beautiful had to do an about-face last month from the Coaching Club American Oaks (G1), McPeek nominated her for the Alabama (G1) on Aug. 21.

* On the bench for four months, Grade 1-winning filly Simply Ravishing was being targeted for a New York Stallion Series race Wednesday. She, too, has been re-aimed for the Alabama.

“It’s tested our patience,” McPeek said. “No question.”

Who knows how these rewritten plans will work out? Take Swiss Skydiver. If she were to win the Whitney, she could then impress in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Then the Breeders’ Cup Classic rather than the Distaff could be in the cards.

This could be the best move McPeek never made.

“It could be interesting if it works out that way,” he said. “She’s doing super. She’s here in Saratoga, and she’s won here. Let’s see what she can do against the boys. It’s certainly a track that she’s familiar with. And she’s ready.”