Showpiece card at Parx dominated by fan favorites, with Thorpedo Anna and Seize The Grey landing G1 highlights
Marathon specialist Next recorded the latest in a string of runaway victories on Saturday [Sept 21] when scoring by ten lengths in the G3 Greenwood Cup on the Pennsylvania Derby card at Parx.
As a result of yet another wide-margin win under regular pilot Luan Machado, the popular grey climbs into the world Top Ten according to Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s Global Rankings, where the six-year-old stands at #10 (from #17, +23pt).
Meet the Next big thing – ‘a freak, a one-off, the further he goes, the faster he seems to get’
Next is next to untouchable at what are termed ‘marathon’ distances of a mile and a half and beyond in the States, where he is unbeaten in four starts this term – having scored by an aggregate margin of 52¾ lengths.
However, competition is notoriously weak in this division in the modern era – Next was 1-20 for the $200,000 Greenwood, which he had won by 25 lengths 12 months ago.
With the Breeders’ Cup on the horizon, the question for Next’s connections is simple: what’s next for Next?
There is no championship race on the main track at Del Mar beyond the mile-and-a-quarter Classic, and therefore the Turf – over a mile and a half – is also in play.
What is more, trainer Doug Cowans has repeatedly stated the view that distance is more important for Next than surface.
“My gut tells me to stay with the distance and give up the surface if I do something like that and go for the mile and a half on the grass,” Cowans said. “But I know you got to face the Europeans, who have a good turn of foot – that’s the thing.”
Owner Michael Foster seems more minded to stay on dirt for the Classic. “Do I want to go a mile and a quarter on dirt against the boys in the Classic?” he mused in the winner’s circle.
“I do, there’s no doubt in my mind, I believe in my heart he can run with them. “But we don’t want to change the horse. He proved what he could do at a mile and a half and out. He’s just good at it, but we’ll see.”
Either way, it was hard to argue with Foster’s assessment of Saturday’s performance. “He’s a machine – business as usual,” he said.
“I don’t want to be overconfident or cocky, but it was just like a paid workout. We work him harder every morning than this.”
Later on the same card, star filly Thorpedo Anna (stays at #6, +19pt) gave her posse of supporters a bit of a fright before winning the G1 Cotillion to take her record to five out of six for 2024 – the sole defeat coming against males in the Travers, where she posted a gallant runner-up effort.
Boxed in form much of Saturday’s $1m contest, she had to wait for a seam before bumping heads with 44-1 outsider Gun Shot and then edging away to win by a neck.
This wasn’t necessarily the style of performance you might expect from a 1-10 shot against overmatched rivals, but trainer Ken McPeek had all eyes on the Breeders’ Cup Distaff and potential Horse of the Year honours.
“We didn’t train her all that hard for this race,” he said. “I felt like, ‘Let’s not squeeze the lemon really hard for this.’ I thought we could win it regardless and we did. She is just an exceptional individual. A win is a win. I’m going to take it. I’m not complaining.
“We didn’t really have to hammer on her for this race. We really, really want to win the next one.”
Seize The Grey (#53 from #177, +164pt) bounced back to form, scoring for the first time since the Preakness Stakes when making all to win the Pennsylvania Derby.
After coming under strong pressure in the stretch, he fought away again in resilient fashion to claim the $1m feature by 3¾ lengths. Both the BC Classic and the BC Mile are in play for the D Wayne Lukas-trained star.
In the absence of King George winner Goliath with a foot abscess, Godolphin’s hardy annual Rebel’s Romance (#7 from #8, +35pt) landed the sixth G1 success of his career in the Preis von Europa at Cologne racecourse.
Setting a new stakes record time of 2:25.91, the six-year-old just held on by a neck from German-trained longshot Straight to record a second victory in a race he also landed in 2022.
Described as a “real international superstar” by his jockey William Buick, Rebel’s Romance is now set for a return to the US, where two seasons ago he won the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
• View the latest TRC Global Rankings for horses / jockeys / trainers / sires
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• Unlike traditional methods of racehorse rankings, TRC Global Rankings are a measure of an individual’s level of achievement over a rolling three-year period, providing a principled hierarchy of the leading horses, jockeys, trainers, owners and sires using statistical learning techniques. Racehorse rankings can be compared to similar exercises in other sports, like the golf’s world rankings or the ATP rankings in tennis.
They are formulated from the last three years of races we consider Group or Graded class all over the world and update automatically each week according to the quality of a horse’s performances and their recency, taking into account how races work out.