Oaklawn Honors Retired Champion Thorpedo Anna With Bobblehead Giveaway on Fantasy Stakes Day

Oaklawn Park marked Friday's $1 million GII Fantasy Stakes card on March 27 in Hot Springs with a bobblehead giveaway honoring Thorpedo Anna, the retired mare whose four-length demolition of the 2024 edition of the same race launched one of the most decorated campaigns in recent Thoroughbred history. The track honored the now-retired mare with the bobblehead giveaway, which "in no uncertain terms equals immortality."

Bearing witness to Thorpedo Anna putting on a show down the stretch at Oaklawn Park in the 2024 edition of the GII Fantasy Stakes before she became a champion was a special moment in her career. That four-length score in what was then a $750,000 Fantasy Stakes at 1 1/16 miles was only the beginning. She went on to win six of seven starts that season, including five Grade 1 events, with her lone defeat a narrow head loss to champion Fierceness in the $1.25 million Travers Stakes (G1) on Aug. 24 at Saratoga. The résumé made her a runaway selection for North American Horse of the Year and a unanimous Eclipse Award champion 3-year-old filly. Purchased for just $40,000 at Fasig-Tipton's 2022 Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale, she compiled career earnings of $4,814,913, ten wins from twelve starts, and eight stakes victories for breeder-owners Judy B. Hicks, Brookdale Racing (Nader Alaali), Mark Edwards and Magdalena Racing (trainer Kenny McPeek's wife, Sherri).

The purse for the Fantasy Stakes, which launched the campaign of 2024 Horse of the Year Thorpedo Anna, was increased to $1 million for this edition, making it "the first time in the history of North American racing that 3-year-old fillies will have an opportunity to run for a seven-figure purse prior to the Kentucky Oaks," according to Oaklawn president Louis A. Cella.

The field that stepped into the gate Friday was shaped significantly by a late scratch. The big news midweek was the scratch of Explora, who unfortunately came down with a fever for trainer Bob Baffert and will point to the Oaks next month. That left five fillies to contest the 1 1/16-mile feature. When it came to favoritism, West Point Thoroughbreds filly Counting Stars figured to strike the fancy of many a bettor. The Mark Casse trainee won her debut at Churchill Downs last September and shipped in to claim a pair of stakes at Oaklawn in December. Counting Stars was last seen serving as the runner-up to Explora in the GIII Honeybee Stakes.

She was joined in the Fantasy by her stablemates Search Party (Gun Runner), the winner of the Martha Washington Stakes, and also by Empath (Preservationist), who was set for her first attempt at a black-type. Gary and Mary West's Sticker Shock made her stakes debut but arrived in sharp form for trainer Brad Cox. The five-horse field from the rail out: Search Party, Cristian Torres up, 6-1 on the morning line; Empath, Ramon Vazquez, 20-1; Counting Stars, Francisco Arrieta, 5-2; Taken by the Wind, Emmanuel Esquivel, 15-1; and Sticker Shock, Irad Ortiz Jr., 3-1.

Rounding out the field was Florida-bred Taken by the Wind (Rock Your World). Part-owned by former NFL quarterback Terry Bradshaw and trained by Kenny McPeek, the bay had already built a strong resume after she won the GIII Pocahontas Stakes at Churchill and the Silverbulletday Stakes at Fair Grounds. McPeek, who saddled Thorpedo Anna for the 2024 Fantasy victory, entered the day looking to win the race for a second consecutive edition. Taken by the Wind had posted an 87 Beyer when she cleared an optional claimer over the local surface Feb. 26, though she needed to rebound from a well-beaten Honeybee effort.

The Fantasy Stakes (G2) at Oaklawn Park, first contested in 1973, is the richest Kentucky Oaks prep race in the country with its newly elevated $1 million purse, and awarded 100-50-25-15-10 qualifying points to the top five finishers. For the five fillies who took the track on Friday, every stride came against the backdrop of a bobblehead in Thorpedo Anna's image and the standard she set walking the same oval two years prior.