Mystik Dan’s G1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile assignment on Saturday could be a step towards making history as the first G1 Kentucky Derby winner to race in Japan.
Trainer Kenny McPeek has already scouted ahead to see what the JRA (Japan Racing Association)’s facilities have to offer should the four-year-old’s owners opt to send their star to the G1 Champions Cup at Chukyo on December 7.
Asked if the 1800m contest was a viable option, McPeek told Idol Horse: “Yes, they’re five weeks apart … it’s a race I’d look at, I think it would be fun. That or the Clark Stakes at Churchill (Downs), he’s eligible for that too. We’ll let it unfold as it may, we’ll get through this weekend and see.
“We’ve done some of the details for Japan. I’ve already (checked out the track surface and configuration) and I know where we’d be training. I was over there in July and I got to see the quarantine facility and the training grounds and where we would be, he would have to ship to another city.
“It’s a mile and an eighth lefthanded,” he continued, “so it’s not going to be anything he’s not already used to.”
The Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile is the immediate focus, though, and Mystik Dan heads to the Del Mar contest in hot form after winning the G2 Lukas Classic over 1800m at Churchill Downs late last month. That was his second win this term, having won the G3 Blame Stakes at Churchill in late May and between times he took fourth in both the G1 Arlington Million on turf and the G1 Stephen Foster.
“I’m confident in the way he’s doing things,” McPeek said. “The problem with the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile is how that race unfolds is tricky. It’s a jockey’s race. You’ve got to hope you get an inside trip, that you don’t get hung wide, you’ve got a position, timing, but he’s a horse with enough turn-of-foot that his quickness is what I think gives him a big chance to win this.”
McPeek is entrusting the piloting of Mystik Dan to Francisco Arrieta, a Venezuelan rider who has not yet notched a U.S. Grade 1 win and has only three Breeders’ Cup rides under his belt. But the 36-year-old has posted some impressive numbers and achievements working his way up from riding tracks in New Mexico, Arizona and Minnesota, and has established a sound reputation in the past four years riding the Kentucky/Arkansas circuit.
Arrieta was leading rider at Oaklawn Park last winter/spring and got his chance on Mystic Dan there in the Lake Ouachita Stakes, beaten a nose in second; his second ride on the bay came in the Lukas Classic last time due to regular rider Brian Hernandez being injured.
“I’m all about if you do a good job, you keep the mount and he did a superb job on him in his last run,” McPeek said. “He got boxed in and had every reason in the world to get beat, and Francisco found his way through there and bravely got him to the wire. When a rider does that, I don’t want to put somebody new on him that doesn’t know the horse. But two really good races that the horse has had have been with Francisco.
“He’s certainly not top of the ranks in Kentucky during the spring and the fall meets but he’s a very capable young man and I’m confident he’ll do a great job.”
This time last year Mystic Dan was off the radar as his Triple Crown rivals Sierra Leone, Fierceness and Forever Young fought out the finish to the Breeders’ Cup Classic. He was instead being aimed at the end-of-year G1 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita.
That troubled journey to California caused McPeek to “reset a little bit” with Mystik Dan after a long road-trip due to no available plane over the Christmas holidays meant the horse missed a key workout and it all proved to be “a mistake” that McPeek said rested on his shoulders.
Mystik Dan was last of six in the Malibu, then trailed in a distant ninth of 11 a month later in the G1 Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park, Florida.
“I don’t think Gulfstream really suited him either but we reset, we regrouped and he’s been fine,” McPeek said.
“He’s actually quite easy (to train), if he was a student in school he’d be the one that sits in the middle of the class and is quiet and gets good grades and doesn’t cause any stirs, goes about his work,” he said.
“He’s an excellent horse to be around, he’s kind and he’s obviously very talented. He makes our job easy.”
And those traits should serve him well if Mystik Dan does make the journey to Chukyo.
“I think it’ll be good for his profile too, taking him over there to Japan,” McPeek added. “Those Japanese racing fans would go to the track in droves.” ∎
