America’s Best Racing has launched a monthly series to celebrate women in racing, explore the challenges they face in what has been a male-dominated industry, and highlight their achievements.

Judy Hicks, breeder of Horse of the Year Thorpedo Anna, draws strength from a tragic loss.

On July 4, 2007, a steamy day in Versailles, Ky., her 17-year-old son, Dusty, a champion swimmer as a high school junior, could not resist the urge to leap into a cooling pond. It would be the last move he ever made.

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“It was sort of like a belly flop,” his mother recalled. “The impact of his head hitting the water at such an angle shattered his neck.”

The future had been so bright for Dusty. Swimming for Woodford County High School, he had captured regional championships in the 100-meter butterfly and 100-meter backstroke. He was an excellent student with the dream of becoming an orthopedic surgeon. There was every reason to believe he would continue to excel in and out of the pool.

No one could ever imagine water would be his undoing, least of all his proud and loving mother.

“The irony,” she said, repeating that several times during a lengthy interview.

How could anyone carry on after that? Her daughter, Kristi, left the family’s Brookstown Farm to attend boarding school. For a time, Hicks did not know how she could overcome such an awful moment.

“My mom struggled with that a lot,” Kristi said. “The farm really helps her because she really loves it.”

Hicks scattered Dusty’s ashes over a lake at the idyllic 600-acre spread. She continues to feel as though he is close at hand.

“I talk to him every day,” she said. “I talk to him every day.”

Thorpedo Anna has given Hicks, center, reason to smile. (Eclipse Sportswire)

Dusty’s passing may help to explain why Hicks so deeply cherishes life. When an Uncle Mo filly was born six weeks’ premature on Jan. 27, 2015, the owner immediately recognized she could never be a runner and was downcast.

“Her lungs weren’t completely developed. Her hock was crushed,” Hicks said. “She was pitiful.”

It was impossible for anyone to spot potential at that point. The owner saw no reason to keep the foal and agreed to turn over the filly to Hicks, who wanted to give her every opportunity to survive.

“To me, they are all living animals and they deserve a chance,” said Hicks, 73, of the immensely-challenged newborn that would be named Sataves. “So I gave her a chance, and it paid off.”

Paid off beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Although Sataves stands 15 hands at most, has stubby legs and does not look anything like a quality broodmare, she defies explanation by being exactly that. Hicks’ decision to send Sataves to Fast Anna for a $10,000 stud fee — she did not think it worth paying more — resulted in a magnificent runner that helped bring joy back into her life.

Thorpedo Anna, in sweeping six of seven starts culminating in the $2 million Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff last November, joined Rachel Alexandra (2009) as the only 3-year-old fillies to defeat males in Horse of the Year voting. She is the seventh female racehorse to be honored as Horse of the Year since the Eclipse Awards were established in 1971.

Although Hicks never envisioned such a meteoric rise, she was convinced the filly could be special from the time she hit the ground. With bills having to be paid, she only reluctantly made her available in the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale.

Trainer Ken McPeek, renowned for his keen eye for a racehorse, purchased her for $40,000. No sooner had he signed the ticket than Hicks approached him. She sure hoped she could stay in as a partner.

McPeek formed an ownership group comprised of Brookdale Racing, Mark Edwards, his own Magdalena Racing, and Hicks. Thorpedo Anna has taken all of them on a dizzying ride. For Hicks, it has been wonderful and cathartic. In addition to the death of a son she will forever grieve, a series of negative events had her questioning whether she wanted to continue her breeding operation.

Most people in the Thoroughbred industry would say working with horses is good for the soul. And there is nothing like winning with a big horse to restore hope and revitalize sagging spirits.

Hicks raises the Kentucky Oaks trophy. (Anne M. Eberhardt/BloodHorse)

“I feel I am very, very strong,” Hicks said. “I’ve had some bad things happen in my life and I think a lot of those things strengthened me. I was able to concentrate on something I loved and not let these bad things pull me down. I couldn’t let it destroy me.”

Hicks attended each of Thorpedo Anna’s five Grade 1 triumphs: the Longines Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs, the DK Horse Acorn Stakes and Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga Race Course, the Cotillion Stakes at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pa. and the front-running Distaff at Del Mar. She even felt elated to watch the mighty filly’s head defeat to Fierceness the only time she faced males in the DraftKings Travers Stakes, appreciating the grit she displayed in mounting a tremendous rally.

The one race Hicks missed last season says everything about her dedication to the horses in her care. It was the March 30 Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn Park. “I was in the middle of foaling season,” she explained. “I was not going to desert my clients by doing a personal thing.”

Her daughter would have expected nothing less. “She is the hardest working woman I ever met in my life,” she said. “She treats her animals like her children. She’s up all hours of the night taking care of them.”

Life is good for Hicks once more. She has two grandchildren through Kristi, Charlee Olson, 4, and Mallory Martin, four months. She has attracted new business. The yearlings she sells are generating greater interest than before.

And she talks to Dusty every day.