The way trainer Kenny McPeek sees it, Thorpedo Anna should be Horse of the Year if she wins the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Del Mar on Nov. 2. “I think if she wins the next one you got to make her Horse of the Year,” McPeek said Sunday morning. “I don’t know how anybody would have much argument with that. We’ll see.” McPeek spoke the morning after Thorpedo Anna won her fourth Grade 1 stakes of the year Saturday, outlasting Gun Song to the wire by a neck in the $1 million Cotillion at Parx Racing. Thorpedo Anna added the Cotillion to earlier Grade 1 victories in the Kentucky Oaks, Acorn and Coaching Club American Oaks. Though all four of her wins have come against 3-year-old fillies, no other horse has won more than two Grade 1 stakes to this point of the year. Thorpedo Anna also has a head defeat to Fierceness - a two-time Grade 1 winner - when she faced 3-year-old males in the $1.25 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga. In the Distaff, Thorpedo Anna will face older females for the first time, a group that includes Adare Manor, a two-time Grade 1 winner this year trained by Bob Baffert, as well as Idiomatic, last year’s Distaff winner and champion older female trained by Brad Cox. :: Bet with the Best! Get FREE All-Access PPs and Weekly Cashback when you wager on DRF Bets. “She’s going to have to run her best race,” McPeek said. “We got plenty of time to get her there, we got to figure out all of the logistics.” Thorpedo Anna returned to Saratoga on Sunday and will stay there for the foreseeable future before shipping to Southern California. The Del Mar barn area does not open until 12 days before the Breeders’ Cup, which will be held Nov. 1-2. Thorpedo Anna has been based in Saratoga since mid-May, a few weeks after she won the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill.  McPeek said he’s comfortable keeping Thorpedo Anna in Saratoga “as long as it doesn’t get too cold up there. I don’t know that I want to put her on a bunch of different surfaces, like, if I take her to Churchill or Keeneland, it’s just different ground. “She’s been so consistent up there, I’m kind of inclined to leave her up there,” he continued. “We got a base of people up there. It’ll be harder on me than it will on her because I’ve got so many horses to worry about in Kentucky.” McPeek had some moments of worry in the Cotillion as Thorpedo Anna’s rivals, most notably Gun Song and then Tarifa, had her boxed-in along the inside for a good part of the trip. At the three-sixteenths pole, jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. made some room inside of Tarifa and she was able to run down Gun Song for the neck victory. Thorpedo Anna earned a 93 Beyer Speed Figure for the win. McPeek said Hernandez, who never hit Thorpedo Anna with the whip, “jumped off and said ‘Oh man, I gave her a horrible trip,’ “ McPeek said. ”He acknowledged it before I said a word. Then he relaxed a little bit right before the wire. He said she was a half-length in front of Gun Song, but Gun Song fought. Brian made it a little bit nervous, but he said at no point was he worried. He could have shook the reins and she would have popped off a length in front.” McPeek said Thorpedo Anna licked her feed tub clean Saturday night after the race. “That’s very unusual for most fillies, most fillies they back up after a hard run,” McPeek said. “But the way she runs, she really only ran the last quarter of a mile.” Gun Song, who came within a neck of upsetting Thorpedo Anna, came out of her race in good order, trainer Mark Hennig said Sunday morning. Hennig said he and owner Lee Lewis are inclined to skip the Breeders’ Cup this year, but it is expected she will run in 2025. Gun Song could have one more start in 2024 with the options being the Grade 2, $250,000 Mother Goose on Oct. 26 and the Grade 3, $200,000 Comely on Nov. 30. Both races are at 1 1/8 miles at Aqueduct. Hennig believes Gun Song, like her sire Gun Runner, will be better at age 4. Gun Runner was Horse of the Year in his 4-year-old season. “I think she’s a better horse all the time, she’s gotten better as the year’s gone on, that’s kind of what made us go in that spot yesterday,” Hennig said. “I felt like some horses from the summer of their 3-year-old year really start to blossom and show maturity and I felt like that’s kind of been her. Gun Runner was a better 4-year-old than 3-year-old, she’s a similar type.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.