There’s still no word on future plans for last year’s champion 3-year-old filly Swiss Skydiver. The 2020 Preakness winner finished a disappointing third in the G1 Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park in April, and trainer Kenny McPeek will be keen to plot a sensible course through the rest of the season if the daughter of speedster Daredevil is to challenge for major honors at the end of the year.
Swiss Skydiver, currently the TRC world #22, carried the second highest impost in the Apple Blossom at 122lbs when she finished 6½ lengths behind winner Letruska (118lbs) with Monomoy Girl (124 lbs) beaten just a nose into second. The race looked a lot like the 2020 Preakness, with Swiss Skydiver breaking inside of the top horses and saving ground along the rail.
She looked at first like she would take the lead after breaking sharpest of all. However, she ceded the lead to Letruska and raced along the rail. Race caller Vic Stauffer even noted that Letruska “has left the rail open for Swiss Skydiver if she is bold enough to go through there” (see video below). But the boldness of Preakness day did not show this time, and Swiss Skydiver faded after the two leaders turned for home.
Before the race, McPeek was brimming with confidence. “We’re coming with a beast,” he said after her G1 Beholder win by almost three lengths at Santa Anita in March. Afterwards, he tweeted, “She just didn’t fire her best shot. I’m questioning a list of things.”
Champion older female Monomoy Girl, who is TRC’s world #15, initially had the G1 $500,000 Ogden Phipps Stakes on June 5 at 8½ furlongs, contested around one turn at Belmont, on her radar, according to trainer Brad Cox. Taking on the older males had been placed on hold indefinitely and, after detecting minor muscle strains and hamstring soreness, she has been sent to WinStar for 30 to 60 days to recover.
Now the plan is to resume Swiss Skydiver’s campaign in the late summer. McPeek initially said, “There’s nothing that I think really suits her right now. The filly and mare Grade 1s are one turn, and I don’t want to change her distance at all. I’ll keep her at two turns.”
However, with Monomoy Girl on the sidelines, Swiss Skydiver could be nominated to the Ogden Phipps Stakes at Belmont on June 5, McPeek said. And the $300,000 G2 Fleur de Lis over nine furlongs on June 26 at Churchill Downs may be a backup plan.
World #83 Letruska’s plans are up in the air too. Trainer Fausto Gutierrez said, “I think we’re going to take a little bit more time with her. The plan is to go to the Breeders’ Cup. We need to check in the middle ... which races we can go to.”
He has said he plans to keep her in the Midwest for her immediate future, but the win in the G3 Shuvee Stakes at Saratoga last year likely means this is one possible target. Not only did she tackle the Shuvee, she also entered the G1 Ballerina, in which she was a distant sixth. Also, she was fourth in the G2 Beldame Stakes at Belmont, so there is a question mark over whether she will attempt another race there.
Right now, these three top older mares are pretty even. Letruska, accomplishment-wise, leads the division for 2021. She has two Graded wins, with her victory in the G3 Houston Ladies Classic, which Midnight Bisou used to jump-start her championship campaign in 2019, and the Apple Blossom. She has also done what only one other horse has ever done with Monomoy Girl - beating her to the wire.
Monomoy Girl has her two championships as 3-year-old female and older female to go along with her seven G1 wins. This year, she has won only the G3 Bayakoa Stakes, but she is still highly regarded in the racing community. However, Monomoy Girl’s stablemate, Shedaresthedevil, last year’s Kentucky Oaks winner, is knocking on the door with wins in the G2 Azeri Stakes over Letruska and the G1 La Troienne at Churchill Downs. She is undefeated this year.
Swiss Skydiver has finished third behind these two. However, she does have a G1 Beholder Mile win on her 2021 resume. She also has versatility that can allow her to tackle not just mile races but longer efforts. And, while Brad Cox has ruled out taking on males any time soon for Monomoy Girl, Kenny McPeek has not limited who Swiss Skydiver may face.
A game-changer in the race for the 2021 champion older female title could be taking on and running well against males. Swiss Skydiver did it twice last year.
There are a lot of other two-turn options available for Swiss Skydiver in charting a championship summer campaign. Here are some:
G2 Stephen Foster
Churchill Downs (June 26)
She could look to upset the males over nine furlongs. It is possible two or more top older males will compete in this race, including Dubai World Cup winner Mystic Guide or G3 Alysheba Stakes winner Maxfield. Pegasus World Cup winner Knicks Go could also enter the race, though except for a second-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, Knicks Go has not fared well at Churchill. While McPeek would probably prefer to take on the males in a G1, he did enter Swiss Skydiver in the G2 Blue Grass Stakes last year, and she ran a strong race. The quality of the likely field is another reason why the race may be under consideration. No female has ever won the Stephen Foster.
G2 Suburban Handicap
(Belmont Park, July 3)
War Admiral’s daughter Busanda, later was the dam of Buckpasser, won the race in 1951 and Hall of Famer Beldame defeated Broomstick by five lengths while carrying top weight in 1905. Swiss Skydiver would find herself in good company should she win this. That’s especially true given that Dubai World Cup winner Mystic Guide is also pointing here. Previous winners include Hall of Famers like Equipoise, Tom Fool, Kelso, Dr Fager, Assault, and Sword Dancer. The last Horse of the Year to win it was Mineshaft in 2003 for Lanes End Farm.
G1 Whitney Stakes
(Saratoga, August 7)
Females have had some success in this. Indeed, the first time the race was run, in 1928, it was won by Black Maria. A champion at 3, 4 and 5 when the Whitney was run, she also won the Aqueduct Handicap (1926, 1927) the Edgemere Stakes (1927), and the Metropolitan Handicap (1927). The following year, Man o’ War’s daughter won the race on her way to becoming champion older female. Other female winners include Esposa, who also defeated Seabiscuit in the 1937 Bowie Handicap in record time, and Hall of Famers Gallorette (1948), Lady’s Secret (1986) and Personal Ensign (1988). Other than the Breeders’ Cup Classic, there is probably no tougher open-company race in North America because the fields are usually quite strong. All the female winners were voted champion the year they won this race.
G1 Pacific Classic
(Del Mar, August 19)
Only one filly has ever won the Pacific Classic. In 2015, Beholder ran the fifth fastest time in the race on dirt at 1:59.77. Five champions made the race a part of their championship campaign: Accelerate (older male), Acclamation (older male), Beholder (older female), Bertrando (older male), and California Chrome (older male/Horse of the Year). Two Hall of Famers have won the race, including Best Pal, who took the inaugural running in 1991, and three-time California Horse of the Year Lava Man, who won it in 2006.
G1 Personal Ensign
(Saratoga, August 28)
Four of the last eight Champion Older Females have won this, including Midnight Bisou in 2019. Swiss Skydiver obviously loves Saratoga, having won the G1 Alabama by 3½ lengths over Bonny South, who had won the G2 Fair Grounds Oaks and has since won the G3 Doubledogdare. Swiss Skydiver could meet both Letruska (2020 Shuvee) and Monomoy Girl (2018 Coaching Club American Oaks) in this race given that they both have wins over the track as well.
G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup
(Saratoga, September 4)
It has been more than a decade since a runner in the Jockey Club has won the Breeders’ Cup Classic or an Eclipse Award. Blame was the last to do it in 2010. As a result, the New York Racing Association decided to swap this race with the Woodward Stakes after lengthening the latter to ten furlongs for a single time last year for the first time since 1989, when Easy Goer won it. Historically, before the Breeders’ Cup, the Jockey Club Gold Cup was perhaps the top season-ending race, with winners like Man o’ War when it was 12 furlongs, Kelso, who won it five times at 2 miles, and Skip Away and Flat Out, who won it twice at ten furlongs. One female has won the race, Hall of Fame mare Shuvee, who was a two-time winner of the race at two miles. For Swiss Skydiver to take a historical race like this would be momentous.
G1 Awesome Again
(Santa Anita, October 2)
This race propelled eventual Horse of the Year California Chrome to the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar (where he was second to Arrogate) when it hosted the Breeders’ Cup there the first time. It also helped to prepare Breeders’ Cup Classic winners Tiznow in 2000, Mucho Macho Man in 2013 and Accelerate in 2018. No filly or mare has ever won the 9-furlong race, previously known as the Goodwood Stakes. Three of the last five champion older males won the race, so recently it has been quite consequential.
Last year, trainer McPeek had a tough decision to make when choosing a Breeders’ Cup race for Swiss Skydiver. He really thought she was better going longer, but he opted to enter her in the Distaff knowing connections planned to campaign her at four. She had her career-worst finish in the race, but she had a poor start where skin and hair had been scraped off one of her pasterns, probably when she had trouble leaving the gate.
This year, there seems little doubt that the Classic is the goal for Swiss Skydiver. Hopefully, the rest of her campaign will justify the confidence her connections continue to have in her.
One way to become a female Horse of the Year candidate is to win a race against males, and it also helps to cement your place in the division contest. This is what champions Rachel Alexandra (Preakness, Haskell Invitational, Woodward) and Havre de Grace ( Woodward and a fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic) did when they won the award in 2009 and 2011 respectively.
However, Zenyatta did not win against males in her Horse of the Year campaign in 2010, but, because the margin was so close, and because she had swept five G1 races in her division, voters determined that her campaign was superior to champion older male Blame despite him beating her a short head in the Classic.
Azeri also managed to capture her third consecutive older female championship despite finishing only 8th in the G1 Metropolitan Handicap and 5th in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Wherever Swiss Skydiver ends up this summer, her connections’ willingness to think outside the box and take on open company means should earn the respect of Eclipse Award voters.
Todd Sidor, an attorney by trade, has helped produce equine law seminars, and has been a member of racing partnerships for a number of years. His more than two decades passion and respect for the sport of horse racing will always make him, first and foremost, a racing enthusiast with a penchant for racing history.