Ensconced on her throne as reigning Horse of the Year, Thorpedo Anna makes the first start of her 4-year-old campaign on Saturday when she faces six other fillies and mares in the $400,000 Azeri Stakes (G2) at Oaklawn Park.
Named in honor of the third filly or mare to be elected Horse of the Year back in 2002, the 1 1/16-mile Azeri marks a rare encore appearance for a horse voted racing’s highest honor. To be sure, the vast majority have been stallions who immediately went on to a second career at stud, recent exceptions being 2021 honoree Knicks Go, who returned to finish second in the 2022 Pegasus World Cup (G1) and 2017 champion Gun Runner, who came back in 2018 to win that selfsame race.
It’s been a different story with the previous half-dozen fillies and mares who have been elected Horse of the Year, beginning with All Along, who won the 1983 Washington D.C. International, and returned the following year to go winless in four starts. Three years later, the indomitable Lady’s Secret came back following her victory in the 1986 Breeders’ Cup Distaff to go 2-1-0 from five starts, ending her career with 25 victories from 45 starts.
Azeri came along 16 years later, duly chosen after an astonishing 8-1-0 season in 2002 capped by a five-length victory in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff and then going on to win another seven races the next two years, six of them Grade 1s.
In a remarkable three-year span from 2009-2011, three more fillies wrested the title from their male counterparts – Rachel Alexandra in 2009 and Zenyatta in 2010 (and weren’t there some debates about that!) with the lovely Havre de Grace winning in 2012.
Comparing horses from different decades is often an exercise in futility, but Thorpedo Anna’s 2024 record speaks for itself (7-6-1-0 with earnings of $3.65 million, all six wins in stakes). The question that begs to be answered is whether she is the same horse who came within a head of being the first filly since Lady Rotha in 1915 to win the Travers Stakes (G1), or whether her momentum has tailed off from age 3 to 4.
A unanimous choice for champion sophomore filly, Thorpedo Anna capped her sophomore campaign with a front-running 2 ½-length victory in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff on Nov. 2, her first race against older horses.
Saturday, she’ll be up against Recharge and Alpine Princess, who were 1-2 in the $300,000 Houston Ladies Classic (G3); the late-running millionairess Free Like a Girl, beaten a head by Azeri entrant Wild Bout Hilary in the Bayakoa (G3) at Oaklawn, and multiple stakes winner Jody’s Pride. Also entered is Bow Draw, in search of her first stakes win.
The odds-on choice to win the Azeri, Thorpedo Anna has been training forwardly for her 2025 debut at the Fair Grounds, covering 5 furlongs in 1:00.80 on March 1 and turning in a bullet 1:00.20 on February 22.
“She’s bigger and stronger than she was [last year coming off a similar layoff],” said Kenny McPeek, who trains the daughter of Fast Anna for Brookdale Racing, Mark Edwards, Judy Hicks and Magdelena Racing. “She’s such a natural athlete. She's doing great; she's the energizer bunny. She loves what she does every day.”
For those who bet on horse racing ...
1 Thorpedo Anna (Brian Hernandez, Jr., Kenny McPeek), 2-5
2 Alpine Princess (Cristian Torres, Brad Cox), 6-1
3 Jody's Pride (Ricardo Santana, Jr., Jorge Abreu), 8-1
4 Wild Bout Hilary (C J McMahon, Tanner Tracy), 15-1
5 Recharge (Keith Asmussen, Steve Asmussen), 12-1
6 Free Like a Girl (Julien Leparoux, Chasey Pomier), 15-1
7 Bow Draw (Rocco Bowen, Henry West, Jr.), 30-1
The writing team at US Racing is comprised of both full-time and part-time contributors with expertise in various aspects of the Sport of Kings.
