March, 2021 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Taking Stock: West-Bred Life Is Good and Concert Tour Top Baffert Barn

Gary and Mary West bred last weekend's hugely impressive Gll San Felipe S. winner Life Is Good (Into Mischief) and Saturday's leading Gll Rebel S. contender Concert Tour (Street Sense), both 'TDN Rising Stars', both trained by Bob Baffert and probably the two leading Classics aspirants in his barn, with five wins, three graded triumphs and no losses between them. That's quite a feat for the Wests and their racing manager Ben Glass–clients of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants–because the Baffert barn is loaded with expensive and well-bred auction purchases for a number of big-time outfits, including the “Avengers” group that raced Gl Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic winner Authentic (Into Mischief) last year, and their former partners in Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy), WinStar and CHC, which races Life Is Good.

The Wests don't race in partnerships, going it exclusively alone–a rarity these days. They mostly buy yearling colts at Keeneland with a focus on Classic types with the aim of developing stallions, and their nascent breeding operation is mostly based around supporting their young horses at stud, including champions Game Winner (Candy Ride {Arg}), West Coast (Flatter) and Maximum Security (New Year's Day), plus American Freedom (Pulpit). That they've raced three Eclipse Award-winning colts in the last four years tells you all you need to know about their program, but Life is Good and Concert Tour, plus the promising 3-year-old homebred filly and 'TDN Rising Star' Slumber Party (Malibu Moon), are now showcasing the power of their broodmare band, too. Eventually, the plan for the Wests is to sell yearlings commercially, and selling a top colt like Life Is Good, which WinStar and CHC purchased for $525,000 at Keeneland, is good business to that end.

But did the Wests sell or keep a potential Derby winner? Much can happen between now and then, but if Concert Tour and Life Is Good were to meet in the Derby, it would test that question and add some drama to the race for the Wests–not that they need any more drama in Louisville after getting disqualified from first in the Derby with Maximum Security in 2019.

At the moment, Life Is Good, who is out of the Distorted Humor mare Beach Walk, is widely considered the most exciting and talented colt of his class, and that he won the San Felipe by open lengths with a massive 107 Beyer Speed Figure in early March makes him look like a man among boys.

“Based on what I saw today, Life Is Good is by far the best 3-year-old right now,” Gary West told me after the race. “But he will not make an uncontested lead in the Derby. Pace makes the race.”

He's right, of course, because there are questions about the colt's ability to see out 10 furlongs at Churchill Downs, certainly based on the speed he shows early in races. One of the reasons Life Is Good was sold and Concert Tour, who's from the Tapit mare Purse Strings, was retained is that the former is by Into Mischief, a horse who a few years ago was mostly known as the sire of outstanding sprinter/milers, while the latter is by a Kentucky Derby winner.

Perceptions about Into Mischief have changed since Ben Glass sent us an email in late 2016 that said, “Mr. West has put Into Mischief on his list this year [for stallions to use].” The stallion's fee had been rising steadily since it hit a low of $7,500 in 2012, and it was bumped to $75,000 for 2017 from $45,000 the year before. Nevertheless, Into Mischief was represented by only two Grade l winners at that time, Goldencents and Practical Joke. The former had established himself as a premier miler and the latter, from a Distorted Humor mare like Life Is Good, was a 2-year-old of 2016 that had accounted for two Grade l races at 7 furlongs and a mile, the Hopeful and the Champagne, respectively. By the time Life Is Good was foaled in 2018, Practical Joke had reverted to sprinting after a fifth-place finish in the Derby and won the Gl H. Allen Jerkens over seven furlongs, but Audible had won the Gl Florida Derby in early 2018 and would go on to finish third in the Derby, hinting at what Into Mischief could accomplish under the right conditions.

In the August 23, 2019, column “Into Mischief's Changing Profile,” I foreshadowed the arrival of horses like Authentic when I wrote: “With the better mares he's being bred to, it's easy to project that his Grade l output at 1 1/8 miles and up will increase in the coming years. When that happens, his progeny earnings should rise that much more, which means that his rivals on the General Sire list are in for a greater tussle in the ensuing years. The latest chapter of this impressive stallion's book is just being written. Stay tuned.”

To date, Into Mischief is the sire of eight Grade l winners, and he led the General Sire list for the second consecutive year in 2020 with $22,507,940 in progeny earnings, almost $10 million more than runner-up Medaglia d'Oro. The year before, he'd led the list with earnings of $19,179,389, a little more than $3.5 million ahead of Curlin.

The Wests, however, decided to sell Life Is Good in 2019 because he was bred on the same cross as sprinter/miler Practical Joke, but they were only prepared to let him go at their price. They got it–$525,000–from WinStar and CHC, who'd raced Into Mischief's son Audible, and it was a no-brainer for the partners to send him to Baffert after their success with Justify and Baffert's handling of Authentic and the outstanding speed filly Gamine (Into Mischief) last year.

The Figure-8 and Baffert

In Gamine, the $1.8 million Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-old sales topper in 2019; and Authentic, a $350,000 Keeneland September yearling, Baffert had a bird's-eye view of the best of Into Mischief–and the stallion's limitations and potential as well. Both Gamine and Authentic were fast, but the filly, a champion sprinter, had distance limitations at nine furlongs like many past top Into Mischiefs while the colt proved he could carry his speed 10 furlongs against the best, surprising many in the process.

Both Gamine and Authentic are lighter and more elegant physicals, whereas Life Is Good is a more robust and masculine model. Like the other two, speed is his game, but how far he can carry it remains the question. In his second start, you'll recall, Life Is Good was cruising easily on the lead and building a sizeable margin in the stretch of the Glll Sham S. before Baffert's Medina Spirit (Protonico), a $35,000 OBS July 2-year-old, took a substantial bite out of that lead at the finish.

As Baffert was preparing Life Is Good for the San Felipe, I noticed he'd called an audible for the colt's last work before the San Felipe and fitted him with a Figure-8 noseband, which is used for control and for encouraging proper breathing through the nostrils by keeping the colt's mouth shut. I texted Baffert last Friday, before the San Felipe, inquiring in text-speak: “Noticed you put fig8 on Life Is Good for 2/28 work and have galloped him in it since. Rare for you. Should help his air, right?”

Baffert replied: “Put it on more for control. Slow him down. His air is great.”

The move proved both inspired and effective, because Life Is Good had eight lengths on Medina Spirit at the end of 1 1/16 miles whereas he'd held the same colt to a 3/4-length margin in the Sham at a mile. As Gary West pointed out, however, Life Is Good had it easy on the lead in the San Felipe with Medina Spirit hard held early to give his stablemate breathing room and the others not wanting to tangle early, but that triple-digit Beyer and the manner in which he won, even with the drifting to the middle of the track, was undeniably impressive and a move in the right direction if 10 furlongs is the goal.

Triple-Digit Beyers

The Twitter persona known as @o_crunk–if you're not following him, you should, because he's the master of stats– tweeted after the race that since Jan. 1, 2010, there have been 132 3-year-olds that have earned Beyers of 100 or more from January through April, with Baffert training 32 of them and Todd Pletcher 27 in second place. In a follow-up tweet, @o_crunk put this in context, noting that Baffert and Pletcher also get the most expensive auction purchases to work with, and he included an old blog post titled “The Toddster in context” that backs up this hypothesis with auction numbers.

Note, too, that over the same time span Baffert has trained six of the past 11 champion 3-year-old colts, the cheapest of which was Authentic at $350,000 if you don't count homebred American Pharoah's $300,000 “sale” as a yearling. Justify was a $500,000 yearling, West Coast was a $425,000 yearling, Arrogate cost $560,000 as a yearling, and Lookin At Lucky was a $475,000 2-year-old.

There's a reason why folks pay good money for yearlings and 2-year-olds at auction, and why they send them to Baffert, too.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

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From OBS March Juvenile ‘Into’ Leading Sire

The buying team at Spendthrift Farm had it down to two different 2-year-old colts from the first crop of the late Harlan's Holiday at the 2007 OBS March Sale. Did they ever pick the right one.

Into Mischief (Harlan's Holiday–Leslie's Lady, by Tricky Creek), winner of the GI CashCall Futurity and the back-to-back reigning champion general sire, got the final nod of the pair, bringing $180,000 from B. Wayne Hughes's operation following a :10 2/5 breeze.

The striking blaze-faced bay–standing the 2021 season for $225,000 at Spendthrift Farm–graces the cover of this year's OBS March catalog ahead of the two-day sale, slated for next Tuesday and Wednesday in Ocala with sessions beginning daily at 11 a.m.

“I can't remember who had the other Harlan's Holiday [13 were entered], but the last day we looked, we literally went from one to the other, just to compare them directly,” Spendthrift Yearling Manager Seth Semkin said.

“They were actually very similar looking. Harlan's Holiday stamped them quite a bit as far as how they looked. At the time, Richard Mandella was coming to the sales with us. Into Mischief was over in the knee a little bit, but those were the kinds of things that were Richard's call, and it didn't bother him. We went and looked at the videos again, and at the end of that little process, thankfully, we decided on Into Mischief.”

Five juveniles shared the :10 flat bullet–two ticks faster than Into Mischief's breeze–for an eighth of a mile over the former dirt surface at OBS. The sale was topped by $900,000 Darley Stable-purchase Forest Echoes (Forest Wildcat), one of three 2-year-olds to bring half a million or higher. The topper won four of 34 career starts and posted $106,281 in earnings.

“Into Mischief was a great value and he breezed beautifully,” Spendthrift General Manager Ned Toffey said. “I don't think any of us realized what we had when we first got him. Other than just thinking he was a nice horse.”

Hughes was the sale's leading buyer, purchasing four head for a total of $1.05 million. The quartet also included the following year's GII Robert B. Lewis winner Crown of Thorns (Repent) ($300,000 OBS March 2yo), who came within a nose of upsetting the 2009 GI Breeders' Cup Sprint. Into Mischief was the least expensive acquisition of the group.

“It was a strong work,” Semkin said of Into Mischief's breeze. “When it was still dirt there, it was very sandy and it depended on where you were in the set and what the track was like at the time you worked. It was an impressive work. He was a hard trier even when he breezed there.

“We also bought Crown of Thorns that year,” he continued. “That was the horse that we really wanted out of that sale and we ended up paying a lot more for him than we did for Into Mischief. All the credit goes to Mr. Hughes. He was game enough to do it and trusted us and allowed us the freedom to go to those sales. It goes to his desire to get racehorses and his willingness to bid the way he does.”

Into Mischief was no worse than second during his six-race career for the aforementioned Hall of Fame trainer carrying Hughes's famed orange-and-purple colors. His resume also included a win over subsequent GI Breeders' Cup Sprint upsetter Dancing in Silks (Black Minnaloushe) in the Damascus S. at three and a second-place finish in his career finale in the GI Malibu S. at Santa Anita.

Into Mischief was sidelined following a runner-up finish as the favorite in the GII San Vicente S. and was forced to sit out the spring Classics. His CashCall win over Colonel John was his lone career attempt around two turns.

“He was underrated, even as a Grade I winner,” Toffey said. “He was underappreciated as a racehorse. Richard would be forthright with you that the horse got into some foot problems that were really not what you would label as 'unsoundness.' That really kept him off the Derby trail and out of the majority of his 3-year-old year and he had a fairly abbreviated career. If you looked at his race record, you might assume he was unsound, but he absolutely was not. He was a very talented and very honest racehorse.”

Bred in Kentucky by James T. Hines, Jr., Into Mischief first brought $80,000 from the late, great bloodstock agent Buzz Chace as a Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall yearling. He was consigned as Hip 22 to OBS March as a pinhooking prospect by David McKathan's former nom-de-course M&H Training and Sales. Along with Jody Mihalic, McKathan currently operates under the Grassroots Training and Sales banner.

“Buzz bought him as a yearling and he was pinhooking him,” McKathan said. “That's how I came to have him. Obviously, he was a pretty nice horse. And back then, that was good money. He came to me and I broke him and we took him over to March. I was always proud of Buzz for buying the horse. He loved him. I was with Buzz when he bought him up there. The reality of it, the horse walked dead at 'ya, but he had a lot of action in his walk. I remember commenting to Buzz, 'That doesn't bother you?' He said, 'Nah, he'll move good.' Buzz had a great eye for a horse.”

McKathan added with a laugh, “I know I started to buy them when they walked like that from then on.”

Hines campaigned Into Mischief's dam Leslie's Lady (Tricky Creek), a $27,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase, to five wins from 28 starts, led by a win in the 1998 Hoosier Debutante S. and runner-up finish in the following year's Martha Washington S. at Oaklawn.

After Hines's passing in February 2006, Leslie's Lady, in foal to Orientate, realized $100,000 from Clarkland Farm at that fall's Keeneland November Sale, a year after producing Into Mischief. Hines was best known for breeding and racing champion older horse Lawyer Ron (Langfuhr).

Leslie's Lady, of course, has since gone on to also produce the brilliant four-time champion Beholder (Henny Hughes) ($180,000 yrl '11 KEESEP purchase by Spendthrift Farm) and GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf winner Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy) ($3 million yrl '16 KEESEP purchase by M.V. Magnier). She was named the 2016 Broodmare of the Year.

Her unraced American Pharoah 3-year-old filly America's Joy was a record $8.2-million purchase by Whisper Hill Farm as a Keeneland September yearling.

“I often think if Beholder had come ahead of Into Mischief, you might have had to add a zero to that $180,000 [for Into Mischief at OBS March],” Toffey said. “Ironically, Beholder was the same price, so that's been a good number for us. They are two of the least expensive horses that we've bought over the years.”

With Horse of the Year Authentic and champion female sprinter and 'TDN Rising Star' Gamine leading the way, Into Mischief established the all-time single-season record for a sire in North America with $22,506,085 in progeny earnings in 2020. He is the only stallion ever to eclipse $20 million in earnings in a year.

Into Mischief, already the sire of 90 stakes/38 graded/eight Grade I winners, has 11 juveniles–Hips 10, 85, 224, 275, 291, 296, 315, 399, 453, 456, 497–consigned to this year's OBS March Sale.

“Share the Upside was one of the programs we started to try to convince breeders to breed to him,” Toffey concluded. “It just shows you, as Mr. Hughes likes to say, 'Nobody really knows.' We weren't quite sure what we had until he proved it to all of us. We're glad he's on our team.”

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A Fresh Look With Ross Doyle

It's that time of year: with just weeks to go to the start of the turf season, thoughts are turning to which of this year's freshman sires will be making a splash with their first runners. With 26 European first-crop stallions to consider, we have asked the views of those who have seen a good range of young stock at the sales. First in the hot seat is bloodstock agent Ross Doyle.

He says, “We have a system where we see every single horse at the foal sales and the yearling sales amongst our team, so we get a very good overview on what stallions are throwing, and types and temperaments. Obviously we buy for other people but when we're buying for Richard Hannon, we're often buying horses on spec, so our budget is limited to a point.

“So we are able to take a bit of a gamble on a physical by a stallion that we like the look of, where other agents might be tied down a bit to instructions, or an owner wanting a specific established stallion. And we've been lucky over the years with first-season sires—and don't get me wrong, it's a big gamble—but Mehmas's sire Acclamation (GB) is a good example. From the first crop of Acclamation I think we bought seven yearlings. Thinking back, at the time, they weren't expensive horses—[dual listed winner and Group 3-placed] Cake (Ire) was £13,000, and that's the way we roll, we have to take a punt on certain horses every year.

“We bought close to 100 yearlings last year and that includes four by Ribchester (Ire), four by Profitable (Ire), three or four by Ardad (Ire), a couple by Aclaim (Ire), and a couple by Churchill (Ire). As far as physicals go, all those horses were stamping their stock in their own way, and in the way you'd like them to. They are all getting a consistent type of horses that we liked.

“I see there are an awful lot of Ardads in the breeze-ups, which is interesting. The breeze-up men must have liked the look of them. As a racehorse, he was hard-knocking all year long at a very good level, and he's a good-looking horse with a good pedigree, by one of the outstanding sires in Europe in many years. It would also be no surprise if Aclaim did well—he's by Acclamation with a very good pedigree, from Montjeu's family. He got a very nice type and I really liked the way the Aclaims improved with time, even from the foal sales to yearlings. I think that's a great sign in young stock. They were grand types as foals but they really came back as very good yearlings.

“It's the first time in a good couple of years that we have really seen five or six horses that potentially have a solid chance on the types they are getting or on how they're bred. That makes it an extremely competitive first-season sire list. If I was to tip one, I think Ribchester has a good chance on the types he got, and I know the feedback coming from Hannon's and other places that have them is that they've got lovely temperaments and they carry themselves well. They seem to be showing all the right signs. Churchill is probably going to be a slower burner but we liked his stock as well.”

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Preakness Anchors $3.25M Stakes Schedule at Pimlico

The $1-million GI Preakness S. returns to its normal position as the second leg of racing's Triple Crown and is the marquee event of a $3.25-million stakes schedule at Pimlico Race Course this spring.

The Preakness, repositioned as the last of the three Triple Crown events due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, was won by Swiss Skydiver (Daredevil), who became just the sixth filly in history to win the race. She defeated GI Kentucky Derby winner Authentic (Into Mischief), who would return to win the GI Breeders' Cup Classic en route to champion 3-year-old and Horse of the Year honors.

Each of the 16 black-type races–10 of which carry graded status–takes place over Preakness weekend May 14 and 15. Preakness Day features 10 stakes races, a half-dozen of which are graded, including the $250,000 GII Dinner Party S. (formerly Dixie S.) for older turf males; the $200,000 GIII Chick Lang S. for sophomore sprinters on the main track; the $150,000 GIII Gallorette S. for turf fillies and mares; and the return of the $150,000 GIII Maryland Sprint S. for older male sprinters.

Three-year-olds not quite up to the Preakness have an alternative in the form of the $100,000 Sir Barton S., while turf sophomores are featured in the $100,000 James W. Murphy S. at a grassy mile. The Preakness Day stakes schedule is rounded out by the $100,000 Jim McKay Turf Sprint at five-eighths of a mile; and the $100,000 Skipat S. for sprinting fillies and mares on the main track.

After occupying a spot on the Preakness undercard last fall, the $250,000 GII Black-Eyed Susan S. returns as the highlight of the May 14 program. It is joined by the $250,000 GIII Pimlico Special S. for older handicap males; the $150,000 GIII Miss Preakness S. for 3-year-old filly sprinters; and the $150,000 GIII Allaire du Pont S. The $100,000 Hilltop S. for 3-year-old fillies on the turf; and the $100,000 The Very One S. for distaff turf sprinters round out the Friday card.

Pimlico opens its doors Friday, May 7 and concludes with a special Memorial Day program Monday, May 31.

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