Kenny McPeak is as near a Renaissance man as horse racing has to supply.
He has spent greater than $6 million of his personal cash to create a smartphone app that places the game of Kings at individuals’s fingertips. He has amassed an actual property portfolio that stretches from Kentucky and Florida to this nook of upstate New York. McPeek’s is a full service barn. He can look after thoroughbreds from the second they set foot on the bottom, from their early working classes to their time on the racetrack and past.
He has an artist’s eye on the subject of recognizing expertise at yearling auctions in the USA, Europe and South America. McPeak has greater than a dozen horses which have made hundreds of thousands of {dollars} on the observe, however his masterpiece is Curlin. He purchased Curlin for $57,000, and the horse has earned greater than $10.5 million on the observe and has twice been named Horse of the Yr.
Curlin is now one of the vital profitable stallions on the planet, incomes greater than $250,000 per mating.
On Saturday, within the one hundred and fifty fifth working of the Travers Stakes, McPeek will attempt one thing as daring as old fashioned. He’ll run his 3-year-old Torpedo Anna within the $1.25 million Summer season Derby with the hope that she is going to turn out to be the primary filly to beat the boys within the race since Girl Rota did so in 1915.
“I am making an attempt to seal Thorpedo Anna as one of many greats,” McPeek stated of the filly, who has received six of her seven races. “However I am additionally making an attempt to draw new followers to the game, create a buzz, present how stunning and thrilling the horses are in full flight.”
McPeak has already had a 12 months for the ages.
On the primary weekend of Could, Thorpedo Anna received the Kentucky Oaks on Friday and McPeek’s Mystik Dan captured the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, a exercise that hadn’t been accomplished since Ben Jones did it in 1952. He additionally has earlier racing successes: Swiss Skydiver received the 2020 Preakness Stakes en path to being named champion 3-year-old filly.
McPeek’s quest to make Torpedo Anna a family identify (nevertheless quixotic) is way more pressing. He admits that horse racing is in decline. Northern California’s Golden Gate Fields is the final observe to shut, and whereas the game stays a multibillion-dollar ecosystem, the declining numbers at races are troubling.
In 1990, for instance, greater than 40,000 foals had been born in the USA, in accordance with the Jockey Membership, which retains the registry. Final 12 months, the variety of candidate thoroughbred racehorses born was 17,200. The sum of money wagered on horse racing can be declining. Greater than $15 billion was wagered in 2002, in comparison with $11.6 billion final 12 months, in accordance with the Jockey Membership.
“Our sport has been in a downward spiral since I began,” stated McPeak, who saddled his first horse in 1985. “Now we have to discover a option to develop it, and shortly.”
McPeak says sports activities are your personal worst enemy. Lots of his colleagues have been sluggish to undertake stricter anti-doping and drug guidelines. On the identical time, most people was discovering how typically horse deaths occurred on the observe, a notion exacerbated when a dozen horses died at Churchill Downs within the days surrounding the 2023 Kentucky Derby.
However since Could 2023, when a brand new federal company referred to as the Horse Racing Integrity and Security Authority took over testing and enforcement, fatality charges have almost halved. Racetracks working below the company’s guidelines and working races within the second quarter reported 0.76 race-related horse deaths per 1,000 begins, in contrast with 1.48 per 1,000 begins final 12 months.
However hidden pondering persists in considered one of America’s oldest sports activities.
Among the many favorites within the Traverse is a colt named Dornoch, who received the Belmont and Haskell Stakes this summer season. He has already been offered as a stallion and is unlikely to race subsequent 12 months as a 4-year-old.
“Each race with him is effective,” Dornoch coach Danny Gargan stated. “Together with his pedigree, nobody is ever anticipated to run at 4 years previous. He is most likely the best-bred horse racing proper now.”
McPeak realizes that the large cash is hidden in stallion barns, the place a single horse could be mated for six figures as much as 200 occasions a 12 months. Nonetheless, McPeak says Mystic Dan, who’s resting after his Triple Crown marketing campaign, will race subsequent 12 months.
“We want our stars,” he stated.
To that finish, McPeek labored tirelessly to show Torpedo Anna into one. He welcomes guests to observe her work out at 5:30 a.m., movies her exercises and posts the movies — alongside together with her grades — to her social media accounts.
McPeak has seen some numbers that give him hope for the game. Its app, Horse Races Now, has greater than 1,000,000 downloads in 217 nations. He believes that with promotion and somewhat optimistic vitality, the game can discover a wider viewers.
That is why he utilized and expects to win the Travers with Thorpedo Anna.
“If we beat them, she will likely be one of many nice fillies of all time,” he stated. “However I will not be fooled.” If we win, everybody will say she beat a foul bunch of colts. It is horse racing in spite of everything.
