The filly Thorpedo Anna breezed in company on Saturday morning on the main track at Saratoga Race Course in her final serious workout for next Saturday’s Travers, and as they came off the grandstand turn, a third horse was galloping along the rail. Jockey Julien Leparoux had to angle workmate Elko County away from the rail a little bit to get around the horse, but Elko County and Thorpedo Anna went on their merry way, as she covered five furlongs on schedule in 59.81 seconds.
So the trip didn’t go exactly as planned, but the result did. Trainer Kenny McPeek expressed no concern about the glitch, and was happy with what was a routine final prep with regular exercise rider Danny Ramsey heading into Thorpedo Anna’s shot facing males in the $1.25 million Travers.
“He didn’t let her out. You don’t want to really knock her out in a work like that. It was a nice maintenance, what I call ‘twelves,’” McPeek said, referring to metronomic 12-second splits for each furlong.
“Just grind it out and leave the rest up to her on the gallop-out, and she galloped out way in front, so it was good.” McPeek chose Elko County as Thorpedo Anna’s workmate in part because he was due for a solid breeze, and got one, against a three-time Grade I winner who is 4-for-4 this year. “It’s tricky.
It depends on race dates for the other horses and timing,” he said. “We had some others that we probably could’ve connected her with, but they already had workmates scheduled, too. That’s part of the art of training decisions.
“You try to match them pretty evenly. We knew going in that was a tough workmate for him. He’s a good staying-type horse.
He did fine.” McPeek said he wasn’t looking for a particularly fast work out of Thorpedo Anna, just a consistently paced one with another horse. Still, her published time was the second-fastest of 26 five-furlong breezes on the main track on Saturday.
“She’s getting closer to a race and she hasn’t run in six weeks,” he said. “She needs something to keep her interested. She keeps herself pretty strong and gallops out there like a beast.
” Other Travers prospects who breezed on the main track were Belmont Stakes winner Dornoch, Jim Dandy winner Fierceness and Curlin winner Unmatched Wisdom. Kentucky Derby runner-up Sierra Leone and Honor Marie breezed on the Oklahoma training track. Ridden by exercise rider Priscilla Schaefer, Dornoch worked in company with the filly Ringy Dingy, a full sister to two-time Grade I winner Defunded, in 47.
65, the 14th fastest four-furlong breeze on Saturday. “It was kind of his routine work here,” trainer Danny Gargan said. “We were shooting for 48, we got 47 and 3 [tenths], so that’s pretty close.
It’s splitting hairs. Carol [Fisher] led the way on Ringy Dingy, and Priscilla sat right next to her. They both looked good at the wire.
Both of them had a lot of energy, and I’m pleased with it. “She’s [Ringy Dingy] outworked him two or three times. She’s a good work horse.
She outworked him as a 2-year-old out of the gate. He got her in the end, but she’s a really good work horse. Ridden by exercise rider Danny Wright, Fierceness breezed four furlongs in 48.
22 seconds in company with 2023 Jockey Club Gold Cup winner Bright Future. “Perfect. I’m super happy with it,” trainer Todd Pletcher said.
“I thought he went well, finished up strongly, galloped out great, seemingly effortlessly.” The undefeated but lightly raced Unmatched Wisdom covered five furlongs in 1:00.41.
“It was a beautiful work, just what we were looking for,” trainer Chad Brown said. “At eight days out, it was perfect. I wanted a bit of a stronger work for this horse because he lacks some of the overall conditioning of my other horse in the race [Sierra Leone], who has run a lot more and is very fit.
I loved what I saw.” Brown said Sierra Leone continued his string of consistently flawless breezes out of a second-place finish by a length behind Fierceness in the Jim Dandy. He breezed four furlongs in 49.
20. Trainer Bill Mott said Jim Dandy third-place finisher Batten Down, who worked five furlongs in 1:01.85 in company, put together a solid final breeze.
Honor Marie, who finished off the board in the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont, covered four furlongs in 50.50 seconds on the Oklahoma. “We didn’t need to do a ton,” trainer Whit Beckman said.
.
