Photo:
Kenny McPeek & Kentucky HBPA
Oh, rescue us please from these dog days of summer. From
Charles Barkley’s retirement plans lasting less time than a Kim Kardashian
marriage to Pitbull getting a football stadium named for him to baseball
considering a rule to make starting pitchers go six innings to get a win.
Football will be the easy answer to replacing this nonsense
that pretends to be news. In our world, so will the Travers.
Thankfully, Kenny McPeek is the opposite of dog days, even
if his yellow Labrador retriever Sonny might beg to differ.
Click here for Saratoga entries and results.
His Kentucky Oaks-Derby double with Mystik Dan and Thorpedo Anna
really was all he needed to dine out the rest of his life. But McPeek is not
resting on those laurels that happen less often than dry summers in upstate New
York. He is taking full advantage of this opportunity to promote the sport on
which he has built his career.
When he confirmed last month that Oaks winner Anna would
take on the boys next weekend in the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers, McPeek
made sure he did it when the widest possible audience was paying attention to
the Jim Dandy telecast on Fox. Not FS1. Not the Fox app. Big, over-the-air Fox.
Where better than the home of “The Simpsons”?
Not waiting for the grass or even the main track to grow
beneath him, McPeek immediately parlayed that declaration. Picking up on the
underlying battle-of-the-sexes theme that comes with fillies taking on colts,
he offered a promotional idea for Anna and the mid-summer derby.
“Pink hats, pink shirts, pink socks,” he said. “I’m going to
be wearing pink. Anybody that’s pulling for Anna, wear pink.”
Forget about the burgundy silks. Could they paint the Saratoga
infield canoe pink if she wins?
All this was a case of McPeek leaving no media opportunity
unturned to promote racing. It was not exactly something new for him. Twelve
years ago he created the app that came to be known as
Horses Now. That was back when apps may as well have been operated with a hand
crank.
McPeek’s forward thinking was met with slow but modest
enough success that allowed him to sell the app and still have a role in its
operation.
Every day since he said Thorpedo Anna would go in the
Travers, McPeek has been on social media with a stream of new content. Videos
of her gallops have been posted along with her daily schedule. When tropical
storm Debby threw everyone for a loop last week, McPeek provided updates on
when she would go out on the track.
The filly’s afternoon walk Thursday was chronicled with a
video posted, what do you know, Thursday afternoon. Her Friday morning track
work in the Saratoga fog was up on X before 6 a.m. EDT. So too was a comment from
75-year-old exercise rider Danny Ramsey.
“She’s mad at me,” Ramsey was heard to say as he was
interviewed by, who else, McPeek. “She’s doing better now than before she ran
the last race.”
Even updates on the ever-popular Sonny have shown up on the
@KennyMcPeek X page. A photo of him standing on his hind legs Wednesday while “ordering
a breakfast sandwich with a side of dog biscuits” at a Saratoga snack shack had
more than 500 likes.
Although he is loyal to the racing media who have followed him
even when he did not have the Derby and Oaks winners, McPeek constantly tries
to extend that reach to the mainstream. One quest of which I have intimate
knowledge is his desire to be on ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption.” If only the
show were not on its annual summer hiatus right now.
“Tony (Kornheiser) and (Michael) Wilbon are invited to the
Travers,” McPeek told me in a text message. All we need to do now is get Kornheiser
to venture outside Delmarva and Wilbon to raise half an eyebrow for horse
racing.
Cynics will claim that self-promotion is McPeek’s primary
motive. Knowing about his quiet generosities, I would disagree. But even if that
criticism were true, why can’t that be the tide that lifts all the boats?
McPeek turned 62 this month. It has been nearly 39
years since he saddled his first winner Final Destroyer, a horse owned by his
dad who was running at River Downs.
Now McPeek saddles Thorpedo Anna, a filly owned in part by
his wife Sherri under the name Magdalena Racing. He literally is invested in
the sport.
A Travers win would give Thorpedo Anna a leg up in the race
to be horse of the year. A Breeders’ Cup Distaff victory would give her the
victory over older horses that she might need to clinch the championship, although
the older division is not exactly chock full of comparative quality.
McPeek figures to be busy stepping up on stage at The
Breakers in Florida this winter at the Eclipse Awards. Already, his long-held, wider
view of the sport earned him a Big Sport of Turfdom trophy 22 years ago.
Regardless of what happens in the Travers, the sport would
be in really good hands if there were more like McPeek.
And by the way, he had better be in the Hall of Fame soon.
Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse
Racing Nation. Comments below are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in
the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every
Friday.
Source link : https://www.horseracingnation.com/news/Flatter_Anna_McPeek_are_a_promotional_dream_for_racing_123
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Publish date : 2024-08-16 20:10:59
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