Hoping to McPeek at the Right Time

Trainer Ken McPeek is a quick study. Not long after he had run his first horse in the Kentucky Derby, he knew what he had done wrong.

This was in 1995, a year when there was no clear-cut favorite in the Derby. The public finally sent off the Wayne Lukas-trained entry of Serena’s Song and Timber Country as the lukewarm 3-1 choice. Serena’s Song was trying to become only the fourth filly to win the Derby, and Timber Country was winless as a 3-year-old.

McPeek’s Tejano Run, also winless as a 3-year-old, became the fourth choice and ran a solid race, finishing second to Thunder Gulch, the Florida Derby winner who at 24-1 was one of the biggest overlays in Kentucky Derby history.

Before the Derby, Tejano Run had run only three times as a 3-year-old, but two of those races--the Jim Beam at Turfway Park and the Blue Grass at Keeneland--had been only two weeks apart. The Derby was the colt’s third tough race in five weeks, not an optimum spacing of assignments for a young horse about to be subjected to 11/4 miles for the first time.

“I’ve learned from that experience,” McPeek says now. “I ran Tejano Run one too many times.”

This is the right year for McPeek to profit from the trial-and-error process of trying to win a Derby. Like 1995, the 128th Derby also might not have a strong favorite at post time May 4, and early on, at Gulfstream Park, McPeek has been looking at two colts that could be factors. Their names are Repent and Harlan’s Holiday, and both will be running on different fronts this weekend. Harlan’s Holiday will stay home, joining an eight-horse field in Saturday’s $200,000 Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream, while Repent has already been flown to New Orleans for Sunday’s $125,000 Risen Star at the Fair Grounds.

Although McPeek feels that his two horses are close in ability, most of the attention has been reserved for Repent, who ran second to the undefeated Irish horse, Johannesburg, in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in October and then closed out his 2-year-old season with a win at Churchill Downs in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes. From the first crop of Louis Quatorze, the 1996 Preakness winner, Repent starts his 3-year-old season with a record of three wins, one second and one third in five starts.

Last week, in a next-to-last workout for his 2002 debut, Repent reeled off a too-fast 58-second clocking at Gulfstream. McPeek was concerned, but then this week, before he was put on the plane for Louisiana, Repent worked a half-mile in a more relaxed 48 1/5.

“He’s been working super,” McPeek said. “Now I have to keep my fingers crossed that he stays healthy.”

Both of the weekend’s races are preps, the Grade III Risen Star for the Louisiana Derby on March 10 and the Grade I Fountain of Youth on March 16. Thunder Gulch is the last Fountain of Youth winner to go on and capture the Kentucky Derby.

“I think the Fair Grounds track will suit Repent’s [come-from-behind] style better,” McPeek said. “I’d rather start out Repent with a Grade III instead of a Grade I, and this way I can keep him and Harlan’s Holiday apart.”

The Fountain of Youth will be a rematch between Booklet and Harlan’s Holiday, who ran 1-2, separated by three-quarters of a length, in another 1 1/16-mile race, the Holy Bull, at Gulfstream on Jan. 19.

“I thought I had the best horse that day,” McPeek said, “and I think he’ll prove it Saturday.”

McPeek, 39, graduated with a business degree from the University of Kentucky, but because of his father’s influence as a thoroughbred breeder he went to work at the racetrack the next day, walking hots (cooling out exercised horses) for trainer Shug McGaughey at Keeneland. McGaughey, another trainer with multiple prospects in his quest for a first Derby win, will run one of them, Maybry’s Boy, in the Fountain of Youth. Saarland, considered to be McGaughey’s better Triple Crown contender, hasn’t run since November and is expected to land a Gulfstream allowance race for his Florida Derby prep.

Harlan’s Holiday, who has been ridden by Tony D’Amico in all seven of his races, will run without blinkers and is the 5-2 favorite on the Fountain of Youth’s morning line. Booklet, owned by John Oxley and trained by John Ward Jr., the same crew that won last year’s Kentucky Derby with Monarchos, is second choice at 3-1. Others in the field are Stephentown, Grey Beard, Speed Hunter, Political Attack and Blue Burner.

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