Judy Hicks

Is Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna) the 2024 Horse of the Year? That will undoubtedly be the most-asked question in racing from now until the Eclipse Awards in late January. In a year where Thorpedo Anna's name has seemingly never been far from any racing conversation, the brilliant 3-year-old filly showed why she absolutely should be under heavy consideration for Horse of the Year honors with a sublime victory in Saturday's $2-million GI Breeders' Cup Distaff at Del Mar. The race was hers to lose and the task made considerably less...

Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna), the champion of the GI Kentucky Oaks, returned to the Churchill Downs work tab Thursday with a half-mile breeze in :48 with jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. in the saddle, according to a track press release. Owned by Brookdale Racing, Mark Edwards, Judy Hicks and Magdalena Racing, the filly began her training session soon after the track opened at 5:30 a.m. ET. Clocker John Nichols reported that the Kenny McPeek trainee covered an opening quarter-mile in :24 and continued her work past the wire, galloping out five...

Judy Hicks will be the first to say that it's not the fanciest farm in Kentucky. The fences are not painted and the lawns are not perfectly manicured. But there is good soil at Brookstown Farm and there is plenty of it, enough to where no more than six of the 100 horses who reside there ever share the same pasture. Hicks and her husband R.W. purchased the 600-acre property located just outside of Versailles in 1983 and since then, R.W. has been meticulous in fertilizing and re-seeding the pastures...

Before anything else, first and foremost we need to acknowledge the unfathomable legacy of Darling My Darling (Deputy Minister) as second dam of both colts denied in an agonizing three-way finish to the GI Kentucky Derby. The odds of that coincidence, for all her elite blood and performance, are best be left to an actuary. In the meantime, however, we should salvage the contrasting narratives aptly condensed, in what remains the definitive test of the American Thoroughbred, by her two grandsons. For our collective obsession with first place is such...

'TDN Rising Star' Thorpedo Anna (f, 3, Fast Anna--Sataves, by Uncle Mo), off since a second Nov. 25 in the GII Golden Rod S., shook off any cobwebs with aplomb to notch a four-length score in the GII Fantasy S. at Oaklawn under a hand ride Saturday. West Omaha (West Coast) and Tapit Jenallie (Tapit), who filled out the trifecta in the reverse order behind Lemon Muffin (Collected)--seventh here--in the Feb. 24 GIII Honeybee S., finished second and third, respectively. The Fantasy is a Kentucky Oaks points race on a...

The first foal for Coolmore's Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy--Leslie's Lady, by Tricky Creek), a half-brother to multiple Eclipse Award winner Beholder (Henny Hughes) and leading sire Into Mischief (Harlan's Holiday) and the $3-million topper at the 2016 Keeneland September sale, was represented by his first foal the evening of Jan. 14 when Lilacs and Lilies (Bodemeister) produced a filly at Brookstown Farm. Bred by Judy Hicks and Kathryn Nikkel, the filly is the first foal for her dam, an unplaced half-sister to GI Ashland S. winner Lilacs and Lace (Flower Alley),...