Horse Racing Is Starved for Star Power. Could Thorpedo Anna Change That?

Kenny McPeek is as close to a Renaissance man as horse racing has to offer.

He has spent more than $6 million of his own money to create a smartphone app that puts the sport of kings at peoples’ fingertips. He has amassed a real estate portfolio that stretches from Kentucky and Florida to this heavenly corner of upstate New York. McPeek’s is a full-service barn. He can tend to thoroughbreds from the time they hit the ground, from their early lessons on running to their time on the racetrack and beyond.

He has an artist’s eye when it comes to discovering talent at yearling auctions in the United States, Europe and South America. McPeek has more than a dozen horses that have made millions of dollars on the racetrack, but his masterpiece is Curlin. He bought Curlin for $57,000, and the horse went on to earn more than $10.5 million on the track and was twice named Horse of the Year.

Now, Curlin is one of the most successful stallions on the planet, commanding more than $250,000 a mating.

On Saturday, in the 155th running of the Travers Stakes, McPeek will try something as daring as it is old school. He will run his 3-year-old Thorpedo Anna in the $1.25 million “Midsummer Derby” in hopes that she will become the first filly to beat the boys in the race since Lady Rotha did so in 1915.

“I am trying to stamp Thorpedo Anna as one of the greats,” McPeek said of the filly, who has won six of her seven races. “But I am also trying to bring new fans into the sport, to create some buzz, to show off how beautiful and thrilling horses are in full flight.”

McPeek is already having a year for the ages.

On the first weekend of May, Thorpedo Anna won the Kentucky Oaks on Friday and McPeek’s Mystik Dan captured the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, a training sweep not completed since Ben Jones did so in 1952. He also has prior success racing fillies: Swiss Skydiver won the 2020 Preakness Stakes on her way to being named 3-year-old filly champion.