Savvy Shopper McPeek Keeps Finding Top-Level Winners

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Minutes after trainer Kenny McPeek signed the $40,000 purchase ticket for a yearling filly sired by Fast Anna (Medaglia d'Oro) he told its breeder, Judy Hicks, that he would earn $1 million with her.

Turns out that McPeek was right with his bold prediction about his now 3-year-old star, who was eventually named Thorpedo Anna. With five wins and a second in six career starts, the daughter of the Uncle Mo mare Sataves, has already earned $1,705,663. Most of that purse money came from victories in the GI Kentucky Oaks and the GI Acorn that carried her to leadership of her division and into the top 10 of the NTRA's weekly national poll. She will be the heavy favorite to add to her bankroll Saturday in the $500,000 GI Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga Race Course.

Thorpedo Anna gave McPeek, 61, his first victory in the Kentucky Oaks. The next day, Mystik Dan (Goldencents) delivered him his first GI Kentucky Derby win. He is the first trainer to sweep both races in the same year since Hall of Famer Ben Jones in 1952.

McPeek has longstanding reputation for identifying prospects at sales and acquiring them at bargain prices. He purchased 10 of the 14 millionaires he has trained at public auction. The most expensive was Tiz the Bomb (Hit It a Bomb), who sold for $330,000, while McPeek's first national standout, 1995 GI Kentucky Derby runner-up Tejano Run (Tejano), cost $20,000 and earned $1,66,842. He bought GI Preakness winner and champion Swiss Skydiver (Daredevil) for $35,000. She earned $2,216,480 on the track and sold for $4.2 million as a broodmare prospect.

Though he did not train them, McPeek bought two-time Horse of the Year and top sire Curlin (Smart Strike) for $57,000, Einstein (BRZ) (Spend a Buck), who earned $2,945,238, for $50,000 and four-time Grade I winner Casa Creed (Jimmy Creed) for $105,000.

Thorpedo Anna drew McPeek's attention at the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale. She was Hip #20 on the first day of the sale, Oct. 24.

“I just thought that physically she was a beast,” he said. “Other than maybe she's a little offset in one leg, she's gorgeous.”

While McPeek focuses on appearance over pedigree, he said that Thorpedo Anna sold for a very moderate price for a championship-caliber Thoroughbred due to her breeding.

“That was because of the sire. Fast Anna hadn't produced anything,” he said. “She's just another level of anything he's ever produced. But she really looks like an Uncle Mo. She's out of an Uncle Mo mare. That's the difference.”

Grade I-placed Fast Anna sired five crops before he was euthanized in 2021 due to the effects of laminitis.

Hicks thought so much of the filly that she foaled and raised at her Brookstown Farm that she approached McPeek at the sale and asked if she could buy into the partnership. He agreed and she is a co-owner with Brookdale Racing, Mark Edwards and Magdalena Racing, which is operated by McPeek's wife, Sherri. McPeek's confidence level in his ability to pick out horses at auction prompted him to change his business model.

“Today, I no longer charge commission. I get 10% equity at the hammer,” he said. “My reward only comes if I buy a good horse.  Otherwise, I'm paying bills like the other 90%.”

After graduating from the University of Kentucky with a degree in business administration, McPeek took out his training license in 1985. His first winner was a horse owned by his father. Six years later, he saddled his first stakes winner. Out of necessity, he taught himself how to scout for talent.

“I didn't have a lot to work with in the beginning, so I created a system to sort them and I still use the same system today,” he said. “I don't do anything different than when Roy Monroe gave me a $6,000 budget because I found that if you squeeze them down and you focus in on the athlete the pedigree doesn't matter. When they head to the winner's circle nobody was saying, 'Oh, that one doesn't have any page.' It doesn't matter.”

McPeek bought Tejano Run in 1993 for Monroe. The colt secured the trainer's first two graded stakes wins the next year and finished 2 ¼ lengths behind Thunder Gulch (Gulch) in the Derby. In 2000 with She's a Devil Due (Devil His Due), McPeek picked up the first of his five Alcibiades wins, all with fillies he purchased at auction. That summer, he made what he considers one of the most important buys of his career: Take Charge Lady (Dehere) for $175,000.

“Take Charge Lady had no black type in her first three dams when I bought her,” he said. “Today, she is a Blue Hen.  So, you're trying to beat the market to the punch. You want to buy before that mare gets hot or that family gets hot. That's really what I'm trying to do, beat the market to the punch.”

During her career Take Charge Lady won 11 of 22 starts, earning $2,480,347 in purse money. She sold for $4.2 million as a broodmare in foal to Seeking the Gold. The resulting foal was Charming, who later produced GI millionaires Take Charge Brandi and Omaha Beach. Two of her other foals were Grade I winners Will Take Charge (Unbridled's Song) and Take Charge Indy (A.P. Indy).

In the Take Charge Lady years, he also had the graded stakes winners Repent and Harlan's Holiday in his care.

In 2005, McPeek stepped away from training and his assistant Helen Pitts took over the stable. One of the yearlings he purchased at the Keeneland September sale that year as a bloodstock agent was Curlin. The colt started his career with Pitts, but was purchased and turned over to Steve Asmussen. He earned over $10 million at the races and has had a long run as top sire. McPeek believed what his eyes told him and picked the colt up for a pittance.

“Curlin had the body of a Greek god,” McPeek said. “When he walked out as a yearling, he looked like a 4-year-old. The only thing is, is he had an ankle on him the size of a grapefruit. His left front ankle.  He'd had surgery and the surgery site had gotten infected and inflamed. He was almost unpresentable as a yearling. But everything else was there, so you bought him just because you thought you could deal with the ankle. In time the ankle was fine. But he was just a complete Greek god as a yearling.”

McPeek ranks Rattle N Roll (Connect) as an important buy at $210,000 in 2019. He has won seven stakes, five of them graded, and earned $1,732,141 for Lucky Seven Stable.

Despite his rise to prominence as a trainer who has won all three of the Triple Crown races and a total of 27 Grade I's, McPeek has not wavered from his approach to the sales.

“I work an auction with a clear mind. I don't even look at the book,” he said. “I just look at horses. If a horse is bringing more than I think it's worth then I will walk away because you've got to have some return on investment for people. The ones that fall through for the modest prices that I think are the physicals then we snatch all those up. Then we will do it again. Same pattern.”

McPeek laughed as he described how his investors react when he is buying horses at auctions.

“Any time that I sign a ticket for probably under $100,000, my phone blows up.” he said. “I've got a great base of clients. Some wonderful people.”

McPeek said his process of shopping for value while searching for graded-stakes bodies, is something of a chess match.

“Of course, if I spend a client's money wisely, they're more likely to buy more,” he said. “We all know it's a very difficult game.”