'We didn't throw money at this' - McPeek toasts homebred Kentucky Derby success

Kenny McPeek believed that the proudest part of his extraordinary Kentucky Derby and Oaks double this weekend at Churchill Downs was that it had been achieved without being "a zillion-dollar operation".

The trainer himself had bought Friday’s easy Oaks winner Thorpedo Anna for $40,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October Yearling Sale. The Judy Hicks-bred filly is by some way the best offspring of Grade 1-placed Fast Anna, who stood for four-figure fees at Three Chimneys Farm before his death from laminitis at the age of ten in 2021.

McPeek’s Mystik Dan held on by a nose from Sierra Leone and Forever Young in a gripping renewal of the Derby, with Brian Hernandez’s timely move up the rail with two furlongs to run keeping him away from the trouble which dogged the second and third home.

Winning for the third time on his seventh start, with a Grade 3 Southwest Stakes and a third in the Arkansas Derby in his built-up, Mystik Dan is a homebred for the Gasaway and Hamby families, bred out of a minor four-time winning Colonel John mare named Ma’am, that McPeek trained for part of her career. 

Mystik Dan is her first foal and is by Spendthrift Farm’s Goldencents. An early star for super-sire Into Mischief with three Grade 1 wins, including going back-to-back in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile in 2013 and 2014, Goldencents has sired seven Graded winners in total, with one other at Grade 1 level, and is currently standing for $10,000.

"You just wonder if this is real," said Lance Gasaway, an Arkansas-based owner. "You just won the biggest horse race in America. I mean, who would have ever dreamed that a little horse Ma'am, a little filly we had, and run her, and didn't breed her to a $10,000 stud fee, and win the Kentucky Derby. It's just really surreal."

Lance's father, Clint, died a year ago and had been the driving force for the family becoming interested in racing. 

"The way we got Ma'am, it was actually me and my brother [Greg] and Daniel Hamby and my dad," he said. "And after we retired her, my dad and brother decided they wanted out. My dad said, 'Hey, I don't want to get into the breeding, I'm too old. I would never see them run.' This would have been the first one right here."

Speaking during the Kentucky Derby post-race press conference, he added: "To me, this is for him. And Dad would have loved it. He loved the game. He and I bought horses together. We have another one now with Kenny, Gould's Gold. That was the last horse we bought together, and Dad named it. I think that's going to be a good horse, too. It's a Goldencents colt."

Sharilyn Gasaway, wife of Lance’s cousin Brent, added: "We feel like we are just ordinary people and we have got just an amazing horse that God gave us. And I feel like that this horse – Kenny calls him an old soul because he's so chill. And if you watched him walking over to the paddock, he was so chill. Nothing spooks this horse. 

"I was grazing him earlier this week. Races are going on. Nothing bothers him. And I think he gets a lot of that from his mama [Ma'am]. We are just so grateful and so blessed."

Mystik Dan (right) crosses the finish line ahead of Sierra Leone and Forever Young to win the 150th running of the Kentucky DerbyCredit: Michael Reaves

Kentucky-based McPeek, the first trainer since Ben Jones in 1952 to take the Oaks and Derby on the same weekend, said: "Wow. You know, wow. I think what I'm most proud of is we didn't do it with Calumet Farm horses. We did it with working-class horses.

"This colt is a product of a very simple set-up. A lovely little filly named Ma'am that we raced. She was a hard trier and she was classy; and fortunately, they decided to keep her as a mare.

"We talked about who to breed her to, and look what she produced. Goldencents is not a big-number stallion, just putting that all together, I'm really proud of. Alan Shell foaled him at my farm in Lexington. This isn't a huge zillion-dollar operation. We didn't throw money at this. We thoughtfully went through it all, and it's amazing."

Connections have subsequently bred a two-year-old filly by Unified named Yes Ma'am out of the mare and a yearling filly by Knicks Go named Ford's Ma'am.

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