Thorpedo Anna could join 7 elite females with Travers win
Kenny McPeek’s decision to send Thorpedo Anna against males next weekend in the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes has been hailed as a shot in the arm for racing. But how big will it be?
McPeek has taken this path before, successfully running Swiss Skydiver against the boys in 2020, when she won the COVID-delayed Preakness.
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A win in the Travers not only would fortify Thorpedo Anna’s case to be horse of the year, it would put her on the short list of U.S. fillies and mares who made big strides when they stepped outside the distaff division in the 21st century.
In the old David Letterman style of inverse order, here is a top seven:
7. Havre de Grace. One of the most forgotten horse-of-the-year winners, Havre de Grace franked her 2011 championship when Ramón Domínguez rode her past Todd Pletcher’s pacesetting pair Rule and Mission Impazible to win as the 2-1 favorite in the Woodward (G1) at Saratoga. Owned by Rick Porter’s Fox Hill Farms and trained by Larry Jones, the 4-year-old daughter of Saint Liam also had Grade 1 victories against females in the Apple Blossom and Beldame. In spite of two Eclipse Awards, Breeders’ Cup success eluded Havre de Grace, who was third in what is now the Distaff in 2010 and fourth against males in the 2011 Classic.
6. Rags to Riches. The highly regarded 3-year-old class of 2007 produced horse of the year Curlin, Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense and world-ranked sprinter Hard Spun. Rags to Riches also was in that crop, making her mark as the first filly in 102 years to win the Belmont Stakes. Owned by Coolmore’s Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith and trained by Todd Pletcher, the daughter of A.P. Indy went eyeball to eyeball with Curlin down the stretch under John Velázquez before prevailing by a head. It proved to be her final win. After finishing second three months later in the Gazelle (G1), Rags to Riches suffered the first of two injuries to her right pastern. The Eclipse Award winner was retired in the spring of 2008.
5. Swiss Skydiver. Her Preakness victory in the fall of 2020 provided a ray of positive news during the gloom of COVID. It actually was the second of three times the WinStar-bred, Peter Callahan-owned filly would face males. The daughter of Daredevil took a three-stakes winning streak into the Blue Grass (G2) at Keeneland that summer and finished second in a field of 13. A return to intra-gender competition resulted in a victory in the Alabama (G1) and runner-up finish in the Kentucky Oaks (G1). That emboldened McPeek to take a shot against 10 boys in the Preakness, where jockey Robby Albarado piloted a first-place finish by a neck against eventual horse of the year Authentic. After a 3 1/2-month break in the middle of her 4-year-old season, the Eclipse Award winner finished fourth against four males in the Whitney (G1) at Saratoga.
4. Beholder. She won 13 of her first 18 races, including two Breeders’ Cups. Beholder then was sent by trainer Richard Mandella into the 2015 Pacific Classic (G1). Sent off as a 2-1 favorite, the 5-year-old Henny Hughes mare owned by the late B. Wayne Hughes’s Spendthrift Farm proved too much for the nine males who tried to keep up with her. Gary Stevens rode to an 8 1/4-length triumph, making Beholder the only female ever to win Del Mar’s signature race. An illness kept her out of the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Classic. She tried to repeat in the 2016 Pacific Classic, but she finished a distant second to California Chrome. It might not have been against the boys, but Beholder punctuated her career memorably that fall with a thrilling duel to victory against Songbird in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita. The four-time Eclipse Award winner was voted into the Hall of Fame two years ago.
3. Tepin. After 14 races and two Grade 1 victories against her gender, Tepin was given the opportunity to challenge males in the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Mile. In the 12-horse field that lined up at Keeneland, the daughter of Bernstein who cost owner Bat Masterson $140,000 at a yearling sale won by 2 1/4 lengths. The win with her regular jockey Julien Leparoux cemented the first of Tepin’s two Eclipse Awards as the top grass mare. In 2016 trainer Mark Casse took the champion across the Atlantic for a victory against the boys in the Queen Anne (G1) at Royal Ascot. After a three-month break, Tepin added a victory in the Woodbine Mile (G1), giving her three top-level wins against males in as many different countries. Her career ended with a runner-up finish that fall in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. A year later Tepin was sold for $8 million. In 2022 she was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
2. Rachel Alexandra. Wins in the Preakness and the Haskell, both against 3-year-old males, already were ample evidence of Rachel Alexandra’s success. Trainer Steve Asmussen went one better, though, in the summer of 2009. He sent the daughter of Medaglia d’Oro against older males in the Woodward (G1) at Saratoga. In a grueling test, she and jockey Calvin Borel outlasted deep-closing Macho Again to win the 1 1/8-mile race by a head. None of this would have happened if breeder Dolphus Morrison had not sold Rachel Alexandra. But after a 20 1/4-length runaway in the Kentucky Oaks (G1), Jess Jackson’s Stonestreet Stables bought her with the expressed intention of getting her out of her divisional comfort zone. After the Woodward, Jackson said it was his disdain for synthetic tracks that kept him from racing Rachel in the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita against the likes of Zenyatta. After three losses in five starts as a 4-year-old, Rachel was retired. A two-time Eclipse winner, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016.
1. Zenyatta. “This is un-be-liev-able.” That was Trevor Denman’s indelible call at Santa Anita in 2009 when deep-closing Zenyatta rallied from last place and more than 15 lengths behind to become the first and still only filly or mare to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Her 19-race winning streak also included a victory in the 2008 running of what is now the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. Most of the success that earned her four Eclipse Awards came with jockey Mike Smith against females on the Southern California synthetic surfaces of that era. But the daughter of Street Cry who was owned by Jerry and Ann Moss and trained by John Shirreffs also was a two-time winner of the Apple Blossom (G1) in 2008 and 2010 on real dirt. Her loss by a head to Blame in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs kept her from retiring undefeated, but her comeback that night from more than 16 lengths back might have been her greatest performance. That was when Zenyatta was 6 and became horse of the year on her way to the Hall of Fame.
In Horse Racing Nation’s informal Thursday poll on X, Zenyatta got more than half the votes as the favorite story this century of a filly or mare vs. boys.
As suggested in comments that went with the poll, honorable mention went to three Europe-based females. Goldikova scored an unprecedented three-peat in the Breeders’ Cup Mile between 2008 and 2010, earning two Eclipse Awards and a U.S. hall-of-fame induction before she died in 2016 at age 21. Enable in 2018 was the first and still only horse of either gender to complete the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (G1)-Breeders’ Cup Turf double in the same year. Found had her first top-level breakthrough against males when she won the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland.
If Thorpedo Anna were to become the first filly since Lady Rotha in 1915 to win the Travers, she would vault into the top six on this list, especially with the case she would make for championship honors this winter.
Of course, all this is subject to lively debate.