2 weeks Ago
The most familiar of all is the dark bay 3-year-old filly with a barely visible tiny white mark on her forehead who is the 4-5 morning-line favorite for the BC Distaff at Del Mar on Saturday. Thorpedo Anna made Saratoga her home from early May until last weekend and produced the most indelible moment of the 2024 Saratoga summer meet when she nearly caught Fierceness in the Travers on Aug. 24.
Fierceness himself has been a presence at Saratoga as recently as last Friday, when he breezed on the Oklahoma training track before shipping to California, where he is considered one of the top contenders in the BC Classic. As usual, the road to the Breeders’ Cup went through Saratoga, one of the most important stops for the best horses in North America because of not only the quality of the competition, but because of its timing on the calendar and the fact that several of the Grade I stakes are “Win and You’re In” qualifiers for the Breeders’ Cup. As such, 61 of the 179 horses entered in the 14 BC races on Friday and Saturday raced at the Spa, including seven in the full field of 14 entered in the BC Classic.
One superstar, Cogburn, ran at Saratoga, but not at the summer meet. The 7-5 favorite for the BC Turf Sprint broke a North American record for 5 1/2 furlongs in the Jaipur on June 8, when the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival was held at Saratoga because of ongoing construction at Belmont Park. Besides Fierceness, they include Whitney winner Arthur’s Ride; Jockey Club Gold Cup winner Highland Falls; JCGC runner-up Pyrenees; Travers third-place finisher Sierra Leone; JCGC fourth-place finisher Tapit Trice; and the intriguing 6-year-old gelding Next, a long-distance specialist who has won seven straight but hasn’t run in the Breeders’ Cup since 2020, when he was 14th in the Juvenile.
It has taken trainer Todd Pletcher most of the year to get Fierceness into the consistent championship form he flashed last year, when he broke his maiden by 11 1/4 lengths on Travers weekend, then won the Grade I Champagne and BC Juvenile to clinch the Eclipse Award for 2-year-old males. This year, he bombed in the Kentucky Derby, but trained so well during the Saratoga meet that Pletcher put him in the Jim Dandy and Travers, and Fierceness won both. “The four weeks he had between the Jim Dandy and the Travers, it would have been impossible not to try the Travers,” Pletcher said.
“Just the way he trained, the way he was behaving, the way he looked, you could just tell he was thriving. His breezes were outstanding, and his energy level was everything you'd look to see. He convinced us that running in the Travers was the right move.
” In a performance for the ages, Fierceness held off the hard-charging Thorpedo Anna, who was in the race running against males because she had been so dominant in the 3-year-old filly division, by a head. Of the seven BC Classic horses who raced at Saratoga, all but two, Next and the Pletcher-trained Tapit Trice, have trained up to the Breeders’ Cup out of their respective Saratoga races. Tapit Trice won the Woodward at Aqueduct on Sept.
28, and Next hit one of his usual spots, the Greenwood Cup on Pennsylvania Derby Day at Parx on Sept. 21, winning it by 10 lengths after having won the Birdstone at Saratoga by 22 1/4 lengths. “The one thing that I think he [Tapit Trice] has done this year is he's become a little more confident,” Pletcher said.
“There was a time where we felt like he wanted to be outside in the clear and that he needed a certain kind of trip. But I think he's shown this year that, as he did in the Woodward, that he's not afraid to be inside of horses or behind horses. He can be ridden however is best for that particular race.
” Next has won his seven straight by a combined 91 3/4 lengths. Not a typo. That includes two wins in the Greenwood Cup by a total of 35 lengths and two wins in the Birdstone by a total of 34 lengths.
He has not raced at shorter than the BC Classic distance of a mile and a quarter since the summer of 2022, when he was fourth in a mile-and-an-eighth turf race at Ellis Park. Then the lightbulb went on for longer distances, and Next has won nine of 10. After his win in the Birdstone on Aug.
4, one fan exhorted trainer Doug Cowans to "Put him in the Classic!”, to which Cowans laughed and said “Breeders’ Cup or Charles Town?” In fact, Next was cross-entered in the BC Turf at a mile and a half, but Cowans and owner Michael Foster opted for the Classic, where Next is 8-1 on the morning line and will draw plenty of attention from the public. Thorpedo Anna’s exploits have been well-documented and well-served to the public in large part because trainer Kenny McPeek has made her available, posting on social media her workout schedule at Saratoga as well as schooling appearances in the paddock during race cards. She had an aggressive breeze on the Oklahoma on Oct.
19 and more of a fitness maintenance breeze there last Saturday, after which she was flown to California on Sunday. The only time Thorpedo Anna, nicknamed “The Grizzly,” left the Saratoga grounds since shortly after winning the Kentucky Oaks on May 3 was a trip to Parx to win the Cotillion on Sept. 21.
“She did everything that she wanted to do this morning,” McPeek said on Saturday. “We could hardly hold her down on the ground cooling out. It was like flying a kite.
She really has made our job ultra easy. Like I said before, they all better bring a bear, because I am bringing a grizzly.” On Future Stars Friday at Del Mar, 12 of the 2-year-olds entered in the five BC races restricted to juveniles broke their respective maidens at the Spa, including Hopeful winner Chancer McPatrick.
He and Sierra Leone are among a very strong contingent of Saratoga stars trained by Chad Brown, who has won 45 Breeders’ Cup races in his career but is still chasing the Distaff. He has a good shot to knock off Thorpedo Anna with Raging Sea, who won the Shuvee and Personal Ensign at Saratoga and is the 7-2 second choice in the Distaff. Six of the nine favorites in BC races on Saturday ran at Saratoga, and Brown trains two of those, H.
Allen Jerkens winner Domestic Product (Dirt Mile) and Test winner Ways and Means (Filly & Mare Sprint). In the Mile, Brown will saddle Carl Spackler, a dual graded stakes winner at Saratoga, in the Kelso during the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival and in the Fourstardave during the summer meet. Owned by Bob Edwards of eFive Racing, Carl Spackler is 6-1 in the Mile off a front-running win in the Grade I Turf Mile at Keeneland.
“Going into the Fourstardave, we weren’t even getting 50% of this horse — he was just playing around and having fun,” Edwards said. “Then in the Coolmore [Turf] Mile, he kicked it up a notch and wired the field, which he had never done before. He’s getting more dynamic, which shows he’s a special athlete.
”.
