Dorth Vader. (Shamela Hanley/Eclipse Sportswire/Breeders Cup)
G1 Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff
Breeders’ Cup Closer Look
Bringing a horse to the Breeders’ Cup World Championships requires a special horse, savvy management, and a little bit of luck. For Dorth Vader, a number of key decisions throughout her life have led to her being the third choice in Saturday’s Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1).
With over 18,400 foals born in the United States in 2020, only a small handful of them will make it to the world stage at the Breeders’ Cup. As special as it is that Dorth Vader is here at Del Mar, it is made even more impressive considering her very existence is because of a litany of correct decisions.
A Florida homebred for John Ropes, Dorth Vader is out of the eight-time winning Yonaguska mare Hardcore Candy, who had delivered a foal by Lea in 2019. When Ropes was evaluating stallions to breed Hardcore Candy back to, it was Ocala Stud’s David O’Farrell who encouraged Ropes to send the mare to Grade 1-winner Girvin, who was standing his first season at stud.
“We went to breed her dam at Ocala Stud, and wanted to breed to another stallion,” said Ropes, who serves as the head of Ropes Associates, a real estate consulting and development company. “David O’Farrell said he really wanted me to see a different stallion and breed to him, and it was Girvin. I asked if he was sure about this, and he said, ‘I think this is going to be very good.’”
The mating was a success, and Hardcore Candy became pregnant with Dorth Vader, but both the mare and her unborn foal were in peril when the mare developed foot issues during the pregnancy. Ropes said the situation was dire.
Dorth Vader and her exercise rider Raul Alejandro make a great team! pic.twitter.com/VED2iAOtGY
— Breeders' Cup (@BreedersCup) October 25, 2025
“She came close to foundering,” Ropes said. “She was carrying Dorth and we were a week away from putting her down. Our blacksmith came pretty much every other day and said he was going to fix it, and he did that for over a month. Finally, he got her fixed, and the rest is history. We’ve been very careful with her feet since and take very good care of her.”
Dorth Vader was born on Ropes’ Rosegrove Farm in Ocala, Florida on March 24, 2020. As a yearling, she was sent to Gayle Woods to begin training for her racing career, with the initial intention to sell her at one of the 2-year-olds-in-training sales. However, Dorth Vader caught the eye of Woods, and showed talent early on.
“When she was a yearling in training, the question was, ‘do we bring her to the 2-year-old sale,’” Ropes recalled. “Our trainer at the time, Gayle Woods, is a great 2-year-old trainer, and she said, ‘I think this filly can really run. You need to send her to the track.’ The rest was history. I’m very glad she said that.”
The filly needed a name, and Ropes’ love of his life, Dorothy Harden, had been waiting for Ropes to name a horse after her. A fondness for the Star Wars franchise led to a clever pun on Dorothy’s name, and Dorth Vader was chosen.
“The farm manager and I wrestled with a name, and we came up with Dorth, which was a good start,” Ropes said. “Then Vader fell into place, and Dorothy is a big Star Wars fan, so that’s how Dorth Vader came to be.”
Ropes, who first became involved in horse racing in 1980, chose the right horse to name for his beloved. Dorth Vader was initially trained by Michael Yates, and won four of her first seven starts, led by the Grade 2 Davona Dale in March 2023 at Gulfstream Park at odds of 46-1. She made one more start for Yates before being moved to the barn of current trainer George Weaver and finishing fifth in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks.
Since then, Dorth Vader has raced almost exclusively in graded company, and performed admirably against top competition, proving her class with a head second to subsequent Champion 3-year-old filly Pretty Mischievous in the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes at Saratoga Race Course. She ran only once in 2024 but came back this year to post a campaign that includes her first Grade 1 coup in Saratoga’s Ogden Phipps in June during the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival.
“After I met her, I said, ‘this horse is going to be a champion,’” Harden said. “I believed in her. When she won for the first time, I was jumping and screaming. Her Davona Dale was unbelievable, and when she won, I was out of my skin. Then the Grade 1 was incredible. I gave her a little talk before the Ogden Phipps, so she just needed her encouragement.”
Dorth Vader enters the Distaff from a nose second to last year’s Horse of the Year and Distaff winner Thorpedo Anna in the Grade 1 Personal Ensign Stakes in August at the Spa. With her teddy bear Ewoks and a dedicated team surrounding her each day at Del Mar, Dorth Vader looks to finish one better in this year’s Distaff.
“We’ve had a great journey and it’s just starting,” Ropes said. “Dorth Vader is the best horse I’ve owned, and it’s not often you get a horse to take you to both the Kentucky Oaks and the Breeders’ Cup.”
Just a horse (Dorth Vader) and her teddy bear. pic.twitter.com/6WE3ejfuNd
— Breeders' Cup (@BreedersCup) October 24, 2025
