Photo:

Carlos Calo / Eclipse Sportswire

Newly minted horse-of-the-year Thorpedo Anna will begin her 4-year-old campaign in the Grade 2 Azeri Stakes at Oaklawn on March 8 and most likely forgo a trip to the Mideast to contest the Dubai World Cup, Thoroughbred Daily News reported on Monday.

TDN‘s Bill Finley quoted trainer Kenny McPeek as saying that he is targeting the Azeri for the daughter of Fast Anna’s first race of the year with an eye toward running her next in the Apple Blossom (G1) on April 12. 

“The Azeri will be a good first step back for her and I don’t see any trouble having her ready for the race,” McPeek told the publication. “We will probably keep her in south Florida for a bit, another month or so. Then we’ll have to figure how to migrate her up to Oaklawn. But then once she gets to Oaklawn, I would think she would stay there and run next in the Apple Blossom.

“She’s nominated to Dubai. We’ve done the vaccinations and she’s still nominated to the Dubai World Cup (G1), but I still don’t think that is going to happen. She’d have to do something really spectacular in the Azeri and be screaming to go to Dubai. But I still think the Apple Blossom makes a lot of sense. Schedule-wise it’s a nice conservative spot and you get to run for $1.2 million.”

Thorpedo Anna won six of seven races during her 3-year-old campaign, all of them graded stakes. Her only loss came in the Travers Stakes (G1) at Saratoga, where she finished a head behind multiple Grade 1 winner Ferociousness while facing males for the first time.

Her consistency at the highest level was rewarded with the Horse of the Year honor at last week’s Eclipse Awards.