Kenny McPeek looks to keep his promise
Six years ago Kenny McPeek made a promise to himself. Hard Buck had just finished second to Doyen in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and McPeek vowed to return when he found the right horse.
However, the imprint that his spell in Britain, as he prepared Hard Buck, had left an indelible imprint on McPeek’s mind and attitude towards training. He was born in Arkansas but raised in Lexington, Kentucky, the heartland of American racing. For McPeek the flat, left-handed tracks of his home country had seemed to be the only way until he saw the variety of racecourses in Britain and even the alternative gallops of Newmarket Heath.
He also noticed the rejuvenating effects that training Hard Buck to run right-handed had achieved with a horse who had shown signs of becoming jaded with the training regime in America. “We tend to go left-handed in the morning between six and 10 and, if you don’t like it, you can go some place else,” he said.
Which is just what McPeek decided to do by creating his own off-track training base near Lexington. “At my farm we’re able to train at any time of the day and in any direction.”
The direction that McPeek opted for with Noble’s Promise was east, across the Atlantic, for a tilt at the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot with a colt who cost a mere $10,000 and is owned by a 24-strong syndicate. “They put up $414 and 67 cents each,” McPeek said. “He’s made £600,000 and would put a veterinarian out of business.”
Noble’s Promise was a Grade One winner as a juvenile, just missed out in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita in November and was still leading in the Kentucky Derby with two furlongs to run. The problem was that his stamina ran out at the same time and he finished fifth.
“This horse needed to be shortened back to a mile,” McPeek explained. “Unfortunately in North America we don’t have a really good Grade One mile race available. The timing’s right for us to come here. He’s as good an American miler as you’re going to find as a three-year-old and I think, for international racing, it’s important for there to be an American presence here.”
His country’s standing within the international racing community is something that concerns McPeek and he believes that its dependency on medication is a matter that needs to be addressed to allow for great integration. “I believe American racing needs to eliminate medication in all Graded races. The sooner we do that, the sooner we’ll be more respected internationally. I think if we could prove that there is a positive effect of not running on medication it would be good. The strengthening of the breed is the most important thing and if you get horses winning Grade Ones who are doing it naturally they’ll produce horses who are stronger. It produces tougher horses in the long run.”
The long run has been something of a problem with Noble’s Promise, with McPeek feeling that jockeys in America have been riding the horse too prominently and he is hoping that Kieren Fallon, who rides him in the St James’s Palace, can take a more patient approach. “He’s won the grass, he’s won on the synthetics, he’s very competitive in his dirt races It’s been difficult with this horse because, with a lot of riders, he feels so good under them and they make the move too soon.
“I think you need to be patient with him because once he passes horse he tends to hang a little bit so he needs to be kept back and not fire off too soon. I hope Kieren can take some notes when we sit down and review some of his races.”
The betting has largely dismissed his chances but McPeek is not unduly worried by that view. “Well, I’ve shocked the world before,” he said referring to his 2002 Belmont Stakes win with 70-1 shot Sarava. “But I wouldn’t have put him on the plane if I didn’t think he had a chance of winning.”
If McPeek is right then it could well be a case of promise delivered.
Tags: