By Dick Jerardi
Over 7 hours beginning late Saturday morning and ending early Saturday evening, Parx Racing gets its annual star turn on the national racing scene with 14 races, 11 stakes, $4 million in purses, most of the country’s best jockeys (Flavien Prat, Irad Ortiz, Jose Ortiz, Joel Rosario, Florent Geroux, Mike Smith, Paco Lopez) and trainers (Bill Mott, Todd Pletcher, Chad Brown, Brad Cox, Ken McPeek, Wayne Lukas, Saffie Joseph), a seemingly unbeatable marathon specialist in Next, the Preakness winner Seize the Grey and Thorpedo Anna, the most exciting horse in America.
It’s Pennsylvania Derby Day 2024, with the two $1 million Grade I stakes, the Cotillion and Pennsylvania Derby, two $100,000 maiden races, a $100,000 allowance race and those nine other stakes featuring sprinters, grass horses, 2-year-olds and horses (or least one horse) that can run forever.
No matter how great the show, a star is necessary. And the star of this show is the 3-year-old filly Thorpedo Anna. Major credit to the Parx racing office for getting seven other fillies through the entry box to run against her.
How dominant has the Kentucky Oaks winner been?
Power Squeeze, the likely second choice, has won six straight, including five stakes, in races where she has not faced Thorpedo Anna. In her two races against Thorpedo Anna, Power Squeeze was beaten by a combined 22 lengths.
Tarifa is 6-4-1-0-1 in races where she did not run against Thorpedo Anna. Two of her wins were in graded stakes. She was 18 lengths behind Thorpedo Anna in the Kentucky Oaks. Gun Song won the Black Eyed Susan and the Cathryn Sophia, the local Cotillion prep. She has been first or second in six of her nine starts. She was beaten 24 lengths by Thorpedo Anna in the Acorn.
Mystic Lake appears to pose the only danger to the Cotillion favorite. She looks like lone speed and she is improving, very much like the last two Cotillion upset winners, Ceiling Crusher and Society, both of which beat Kentucky Oaks winners.
But Thorpedo Anna is not just a Kentucky Oaks winner. She has won three other graded stakes and, in a few jumps, would have won the Travers against males. If she runs back to her Travers, this won’t be close. If she just runs back to her normal terrific form, only Mystic Lake has much chance at an upset. And even her tactical advantage may not matter. Thorpedo Anna is just that good.
Preakness winner Seize the Grey likely won’t be the favorite in the Pennsylvania Derby, but his trainer, the eternally optimistic 89-year-old horse racing legend Wayne Lukas, thinks his two poor races at Saratoga were due to his not liking that surface.
If Seize the Grey can run back to his Preakness, he not only can win, he should win. It is the best race any of these horses has ever run. But it is a big if, especially in a race loaded with early speed, the weapon Seize the Grey used to win the Preakness.
Dragoon Guard, a neck from being unbeaten in five starts, is the likely Pa. Derby favorite. The colt has the same connections (trainer Brad Cox, jockey Florent Geroux) and same front-running style as last year’s Pa. Derby winner Saudi Crown. That, however, is where the comparisons end. Saudi Crown had Beyer figures of 105 and 106 coming into the race. West Virginia and Indiana Derby winner Dragoon Guard has three straight 91 Beyers.
Nothing went right for Unmatched Wisdom in the Travers. He was perfect in three starts with jockey Flavien Prat who rode Sierra Leone for trainer Chad Brown in the Travers. Now, Prat and Brown, the dominant jockey/trainer pair at the recent Saratoga meet, reconnect with Unmatched Wisdom and that makes this lightly-race colt dangerous.
Three locals, Lonesome Boy, Just Step On It and Uncle Heavy, will try to get the first Pa. Derby for the home team since Devil’s Honor won it for trainer Walter Reese and jockey Tony Black in 1996.
The Pa. Derby and Cotillion will get the headlines as they should, but there is so much talent spread over the card that it will be a betting feast from start to finish, so attractive that the handle record of $18.8 million set in 2022, could be challenged.
It will be interesting to see which of Thorpedo Anna and Next will be the biggest favorite in the graded stakes. The amazing Next, claimed for $62,500 on April 16, 2022, will try for a repeat in the $200,000 mile and a half Greenwood Cup. All the 5-year-old did last year was win it by 25 lengths. His last five wins, all of which qualify as horse racing marathons, have come by a combined 80 lengths. Again, major credit to the racing office for getting nine other horses entered.
In fact, the racing office has once again outdone itself with this card. Last year, there were 134 horses that ran in the 14 races, 9.6 per race. We shall see after scratches what the total is this Pa. Derby Day, a day of racing that somehow just keeps getting bigger and better every year.
