Bill Farish | Horse Racing Free Tips

New Blood in Lane’s End Stud Barn

Two new stallions, both debut winners as juveniles who went on to become Grade I winners, have joined the Lane's End roster for 2022. Code of Honor (Noble Mission {GB} – Reunited, by Dixie Union) and Lexitonian (Speightstown – Riviera Romper, by Tapit) will stand for a fee of $10,000 in their first year at stud.

“Code of Honor and Lexitonian are sound, consistent young horses and they both give breeders a chance to breed to Grade I-winning sires with fair, introductory prices and super pedigrees,” Lane's End Farm's Bill Farish explained. “They've both had a lot of breeders come look at them and I think people have been really impressed. Lexitonian is more of a Speightstown-type horse. He's very strongly made and more of a sprinter type, whereas Code of Honor has a little more length to him that I think has surprised people.”

Farish discussed the book of mares that each stallion compiled for their first year and talked about the key factors that have encouraged breeders to support the new sires.

For Code of Honor in particular, Farish emphasized the wide variety of mares that he attracted.

“He got a very interesting cross section of mares,” he explained. “Being by Noble Mission but also a dirt horse, it really presents breeders with an interesting dilemma because you think, 'Do you breed him to a dirt mare or a turf mare?' We're kind of taking the approach that he can have success with both. [Physically] he has some of the finer qualities of Noble Mission, but with being so successful on the dirt, he has a little bit of a different look than most of Noble Mission's turf runners.”

Farish said that this fall, Lane's End purchased 18 mares at the Keeneland November Sale to send to Code of Honor.

“Again, it was kind of a cross section of mares,” he noted. “If you run some of them through a nicking software they don't come out so well because breeding an A.P. Indy mare to a Sadler's Wells-line stallion hasn't been tried very much yet, but we think with this horse and his affinity for dirt, it should have a good chance of working.”

A homebred for W.S. Farish and the son of GIII Thoroughbred Club of America S. winner Reunited (Dixie Union), Code of Honor trained under Shug McGaughey throughout his four-year career. A debut winner at two, the colt ran second in the GI Champagne S. despite stumbling at the start. Early in his sophomore season, he won the GII Fountain of Youth, finished third in the GI Florida Derby and then ran a runner-up effort in the GI Kentucky Derby. Over his sophomore summer, the chestnut reeled off consecutive scores in the GIII Dwyer S., GI Travers S. and GI Jockey Club Gold Cup S.

“He was a phenomenal racehorse and is one you dream about getting,” Farish said. “The Travers was a real thrill for Mom and Dad, obviously, and it's great for the farm to get him back here as a stallion prospect.”

Code of Honor remained in training at four and five, collecting victories in the GIII Westchester S. and GIII Philip H. Iselin S. while also placing in the GI Metropolitan H., GII Kelso H., GI Clark S. and GII Hagyard Fayette S. He retired with earnings of almost $3 million.

“He was a gutsy, gutsy racehorse and he had an amazingly-efficient stride,” Farish said. “He was a horse that brought it every day to his training and his races. I think that's something we'll see in his offspring. Any time we have a homebred come back here as a stallion, it's very exciting, but to have a homebred end up being a multiple Grade I winner and a Travers winner is the ultimate achievement.”

Lane's End's second new addition Lexitonian is a homebred for Calumet Farm.

“Lexitonian is a really exciting horse for us,” Farish said. “He's our first son of Speightstown. He exhibited amazing consistency throughout his career. Brad Kelley at Calumet has entrusted us to stand him and we're really excited to have him.”

Lexitonian gets his signature win in the GI Alfred G. Vanderbilt at Saratoga | Sarah Andrew

Another debut winner at two, Lexitonian won the GIII Chick Lang S. and Concern S. as a 3-year-old, also placing in the GII Phoenix S. at Keeneland. At four, the chestnut was second by a nose to Collusion Illusion (Twirling Candy) in the GI Bing Crosby S. Returning for his 5-year-old season, he was a close second in the GI Churchill Downs S. on the Kentucy Derby undercard and then scored his signature victory in the GI Alfred G. Vanderbilt H. at Saratoga.

“His race in the Vanderbilt really stands out as an incredible win,” Farish said. “You're there at Saratoga in a field of Grade I winners, including a champion in Whitmore (Pleasantly Perfect), so it was a big, big day for him. To come out on top in that field was impressive and stamped him as a stallion prospect.”

Lexitonian was purchased in utero by Calumet for $310,000. The son of a winning Tapit mare, his second dam Swap Fliparoo (Exchange Rate) won the 2006 GI Test S.

“With Lexitonian being from the Gone West line as a son of Speightstown crossed with Tapit on the bottom side, it's that magic cross of the A.P. Indy line with the Mr. Prospector line,” Farish explained. “It's one of the things that really attracted us to him in the beginning and then for his granddam to be a Grade I winner really adds to it.”

In addition to the support the new stallion will receive from Lane's End, Farish noted that Calumet will be sending over 20 mares to Lexitonian in his first year.

“Lexitonian is getting a tremendous amount of support from Calumet, but he's also getting a tremendous amount of interest from breeders. Breeders love him physically. They're really impressed with him as an individual. He's a speedy, good-looking son of Speightstown and that's very appealing to the market.”

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A Sire Waging War on Two Fronts

Call it the Japan factor. We've already seen it creating opportunities for breeders, after all, with Hard Spun–a still more direct conduit of Danzig blood, and arguably underpriced ever since his relaunch in Kentucky after a sojourn in Hokkaido. The Factor, however, is four years further behind in that process, and right now finds himself at an intriguing crossroads in his rehabilitation.

Having spent 2018 at Shizunai Stallion Station, the son of War Front had no American juveniles last year and will accordingly have no sophomore representation in 2022. That will obviously make it harder for the Lane's End stallion to generate the kind of domestic headlines required to arrest the attention of breeders. But there are two things that should help keep him in the game during a period when he might otherwise be expected only to tread water.

One is that his resumé, to this point, entitles The Factor to rely to an exceptional degree on his residual American stock, pending the (imminent) emergence of his first runners conceived after his return from Japan. The gray has a really striking record with mature horses–with the evergreen 8-year-old Bound for Nowhere, indeed, still flying the flag for his sire's very first crop after winning the GII Shakertown S. at Keeneland last year.

And that's useful context for the other stimulus to The Factor's cause, which might be harder for his promoters to keep in the foreground but certainly deserves an airing: the yield he has already achieved with his single Japanese crop, despite their deployment in a fashion dramatically different to that evolved, with their growing understanding of his stock, by American horsemen.

Technically eligible as a first-season sire in the Japanese rankings, The Factor had 19 juvenile winners in 2021, placing him fifth in the rookies' table. This tally was achieved from as many as 74 starters, albeit that was actually fewer than had represented any of the four above him. (The top two, indeed, gunned no fewer than 92 and 94 starters respectively!) The previous year, in contrast, American trainers had started less than half as many juveniles (34) by The Factor, and had pushed only half a dozen of those early enough, and hard enough, to win.

On the face of it, then, Japanese trainers appear to have fallen prey to pretty much the same misapprehension that contributed to an up-and-down start to this horse's home career.

Back in 2015, The Factor created such a buzz with his first yearlings into the ring–averaging a spectacular $143,499 off a $15,000 cover–that he was afforded the unusual distinction of a fee hike (to $25,000) before he had even launched his first runners. Somehow the market had decided that he would produce a stream of precocious youngsters, even though he had himself only made his debut on Nov. 28 (and broken his maiden a month later). To be fair, he was a sufficiently natural runner to promptly make all in both the GII San Vicente S. and GII Rebel S., before derailing from the Triple Crown trail and reverting to sprinting for his two Grade I wins.

In the event, with many immature yearlings having been put through the pinhooking ringer, The Factor had to settle for fifth in the 2016 freshmen's championship; and for 10th by winners, with 14 from 53 starters. (Albeit these included GI Chandelier S. winner Noted and Quoted.) Gradually, however, people figured out that he would reward a more patient approach. As his stock matured, so did The Factor's standing. He finished runner-up for the second-crop title; and by 2019, the year he had returned to Kentucky, he was bossing the fourth-crop table across all indices: 167 winners of $10.1 million, including 13 stakes winners/29 stakes performers. (The same year Union Rags and Maclean's Music, who have emerged from the same intake to command consistently higher fees, couldn't match those numbers even if combined together.)

There was a perfect snapshot of The Factor's developing profile that year when the 5-year-old Cistron, who had actually contributed a juvenile maiden win to his sire's freshman tally, crowned his ongoing improvement with success in the GI Bing Crosby S. By the end of the campaign, moreover, only Into Mischief and Kitten's Joy beat the 167 winners accumulated by The Factor.

The die was now cast. In 2020, The Factor missed making the top 10 living Kentucky stallions by a few cents; and while he proved a little lighter at the top end in 2021, by volume of winners he was beaten this time only by Into Mischief and Munnings. These are quite remarkable accomplishments for a stallion standing at $17,500.

Unlike so many of his commercially esteemed rivals, moreover, The Factor's output is not the result of enormous books. Its bedrock is–well, the second syllable of that word: Rock. Or substance, soundness, constitution. Not one of his Kentucky rivals can match his ability to get a named foal onto the racetrack, with a lifetime clip currently topping 88%. More Than Ready and the Airdrie stalwart Include get closest, at 85%, but there are some pretty expensive stallions bumping along in the low 70s. (The Factor gets fairly close to some of those even by his ratio of winners to named foals, touching 63%.)

The Factor's leading performer in 2021 was Charmaine's Mia, who won three graded stakes and placed in the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint. Here, sure enough, was another showing striking improvement in her fourth campaign, having started out at two winning a maiden claimer. By now, then, we should all know what to expect of a sire entering his prime at 14. If his Japanese stock have been more aggressively campaigned in their youth, then it can only be auspicious that they have responded as well as they have. Because, with such hardiness on their side, they will surely keep building like their American kin.

“It was the classic case of a horse looking like he was going to be a big 2-year-old sire,” says Bill Farish of Lane's End, invited to reflect on The Factor's evolving profile here. “The hype was amazing, and very hard to live up to. He's done very well to be so successful after people had to readjust their sights, because I think he was really penalized that first year, when so many of them went to the 2-year-old sales. They just weren't ready for that kind of grind. I remember talking to [partner] George Bolton at the time, saying that [The Factor's sales debut] was kind of a mixed blessing because if they don't really thrive in that environment, it would hurt his numbers. And it did. But they came through anyway, because they're just so sound.”

Sending The Factor to Japan was a calculated risk. No doubt there were sound economic reasons for doing so, especially at a time when the domestic market was reappraising its initial assumptions. At the same time, the horse's migration locked a blip into his future momentum, one that perhaps contributed to a rather quieter yield at the yearling sales this time round. Farish duly urges breeders to consider the bigger picture, and anticipate the potential gains in The Factor's stature by the time foals conceived this spring come onto the market.

“Luckily, he's had 366 mares since he returned, so he's got quite a pipeline coming from the last three seasons,” he said. “That's important because it can take a while to recover from taking even one year off, and we know his production on the track will be down some this year. But I think he's the kind of exceptional horse that can pull it off. He's proven to be so consistent, and we're excited about bringing him back on track.

“Hopefully everyone will see what an impressive start his Japanese foals have made. It's hard to follow all the form over there, but I know they were quite happy with the book of mares they got [166] and they're certainly pleased with the results. Making the top five first-season sires over there is very impressive.”

Having shuttled three times to the Southern Hemisphere, and with top-class form on synthetics as well as dirt, The Factor is eligible to prove a significant international influence. After all, he comes from the first crop of one such, War Front, who was himself among the last sons of a still greater one, in Danzig.

Moreover The Factor offers modern breeders parallel compression of access to a damsire, shared with Galileo (Ire) and company, as internationally important as Miswaki.

“But while he does get turf horses, too, I think 17 of his 19 winners in Japan have been on the dirt,” Farish stressed. “I don't know if they've been targeting dirt races primarily, to start out, but they certainly handle it well.”

Bottom line is that his trademark resilience should allow The Factor not only to build on his prolific start in Japan, but to bridge the gap his migration will temporarily create in his domestic footprint.

“He does get 2-year-olds, but they stay around too,” Farish said. “It's just amazing, if you go down the list of his top performers, and see how many of them are four, five, six, even seven years old. It's not just one or two cases. All his top runners have kept right on going, to a degree I've really never seen. He gets sound horses–and that's half the battle, isn't it? They go on forever.

“All those [sire] lists are so useful, because people do tend to forget about stallions just below the top tier and they can see just how consistent he has been. With those percentages for starters and winners, he gives you a really good chance. The Factor is the definition of a value sire.”

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For Bloodstock Agent Ingordo, Flightline Always Had The ‘It’ Quality

Halley's Comet comes around once in a lifetime. Someday, the same might be said of Flightline.

In three starts, the 3-year-old colt by Tapit has won by a combined 37 ½ lengths, going six furlongs in 1:08.75 in his debut, the same distance in 1:08.05 next out, and then racing seven furlongs in 1:21.37 while winning the Grade 1 Runhappy Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita on Sunday's opening day of the winter-spring meet. Jockey Flavien Prat was like a statue down the lane as Flightline won under wraps by 11 ½ lengths for trainer John Sadler.

His Beyer Speed Figures were 105, 114 and 118, respectively. The latter is the highest Beyer Speed Figure given to any horse this year, according to Daily Racing Form's Jay Privman.

“That puts this horse in a different stratosphere,” said West Point Thoroughbreds' CEO Terry Finley, one of Flightline's owners.

An hour before the Malibu, the 3-year-old filly Kalypso won the G1 La Brea Stakes with a seven-furlong final time of 1:24.78, fully 3 2/5 seconds slower than Flightline.

Performance numbers are one way of measuring a horse's ability. David Ingordo, the bloodstock agent who bought Flightline on behalf of West Point Thoroughbreds and several other partners for $1-million at the 2019 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Yearling Sale, said the colt also passed the eyeball test.

“He's a brilliant horse and you don't need Ragozins or Beyers to see that,” Ingordo said. “You can tell that he doesn't have to put a lot into what he's doing. He does it so easily.”

Ingordo first laid eyes on Flightline when he and Bill Farish from Lane's End visited breeder Jane Lyon's Summer Wind Farm in Georgetown, Ky., to look at a different Tapit colt from the 2018 foal crop, a chestnut-coated half brother to Triple Crown winner American Pharoah. Lane's End consigns the Summer Wind horses and Ingordo said there was interest in buying the colt off the farm privately.

“There was another horse in the paddock and I said to Bill, 'I like the brown one.' Bill said, 'We're here to see the chestnut one.'”

The brown horse turned out to be Flightline. The chestnut colt, who remained the property of Summer Wind, was named Triple Tap and turned over to trainer Bob Baffert. Two-for-two going into the Malibu, Triple Tap finished 18 ¾ lengths behind Flightline in fourth place.

Ingordo saw the two horses several more times and his preference for the brown colt never wavered.

When it came time for the Saratoga sale, Ingordo hitched a ride to New York on a Tex Sutton flight to ride with a group of yearlings. “I was sitting in the back with one of the guys I knew well,” Ingordo said. “He said it was going to be a bumpy ride and asked if I would grab a couple yearlings. “One of them had a pretty good head on him and I noticed his name was Flightline. I looked up his pedigree and saw it was the horse from Summer Wind that I liked so much.”

Ingordo began representing West Point Thoroughbreds in 2017 and the Tapit colt out of the graded stakes-winning Indian Charlie mare, Feathered, is the kind of prospect Finley said his partners are looking for. Finley knew it would take serious money to buy Flightline, so put together a group that included Hronis Racing LLC, Siena Farm LLC, Farish's Woodford Racing LLC and Summer Wind. The hammer price was $1-million.

“Stephanie Hronis was there and David has done great work for them (she and husband Kosta Hronis),” said Finley. “She fell in love with the horse at the Lane's End consignment. We've had good luck partnering with Siena (Anthony Manganaro), buying five together and getting two Grade 1 winners, a Grade 2, and a stakes winner. We had not done anything with Jane Lyon before, but that really makes a difference when a breeder has the confidence to stay in, especially when it's big dollars. She bypassed the chance to take $250,000 off the table, and that's a strong statement.”

Finley confirmed that Summer Wind owns 25% of Flightline but didn't want to disclose how the remaining share of the horse was divided among the four additional partners.

There is no textbook for picking potential athletes, whether they are equine or human. Ingordo said he spent time with a couple of professional baseball scouts who are also interested in horse racing and found it's the same in both professions. There's an “it” quality with some athletes that is hard to miss, he said, whether it's a LeBron James in basketball or Bo Jackson, one of the greatest two sport athletes of all time who was named a Major League Baseball All Star and an All Pro running back in the NFL. (The two scouts, Ingordo said, both thought Jackson would be better at baseball if he stuck to one sport.)

“Horses are the same way,” he continued. “I remember when Garrett O'Rourke (Juddmonte Farms general manager) showed me a bunch of 2-year-olds. One of them just stood out, and it was Empire Maker (eventual G1 Belmont Stakes winner). Same thing with Zenyatta. I said, 'This is a horse we have to have.' Honor A.P. (G1 Santa Anita Derby winner) is another. I said, 'I don't give a crap. I'm buying this horse.'

“Flightline is another one of those. Each time I saw him I liked him more. There was just something about him. Of course the history books are littered with stories about trainers getting great unraced 2-year-olds where something happens.”

Something did happen to Flightline, but, fortunately, it only postponed his racing career.

In January 2020, Ingordo went to visit Flightline and other clients' horses at Mayberry Farm in Ocala, Fla., an operation run by Jeanne Mayberry and her two daughters, April and Summer.

“I'm watching these sets train and saw lots of beautiful horses,” he said. “I'm waiting for the next set and I hear this big crash, a loud bang. The Tapit colt scared himself, something startled him. He had his tack on and was ready to go out, but caught his butt on a stall door latch. It was a pretty deep wound and took a long time to heal. You can see that scar back there. One of those fluke things that will happen. We gave him plenty of time to heal, then COVID hit, and a lot of people were on a holding pattern.

“The Mayberrys are a big part of the program,” he said. “Jeanne (working alongside her late husband, Brian) trained a Kentucky Oaks winner (Sardula in 1994 for Ann and Jerry Moss). They called me very early on about Zenyatta. And two years ago they called me and said we might have another good one, Honor A.P. And then April called me early last year to say, 'You're going to think I'm crazy, but we might have two or three horses that are better than the group we had with Honor A.P.”

It's tempting to get overly excited about a horse after one start. Flightline won his April 2021 debut by 13 ¼ lengths at Santa Anita, then didn't show up again until Sept. 5 at Del Mar, Sadler giving him plenty of time to overcome a foot bruise. He won that allowance race by 12 ¾ lengths.

That second win brought more hype and speculation that Sadler might point the lightly raced colt to the G1 Breeders' Cup Sprint at Del Mar. No dice. He instead circled Dec. 26 on the calendar. Flightline didn't miss a beat in his training up to the Malibu.

Flightline passed this latest test with flying colors, even though this was not the deepest Malibu field we've seen and the other leading 3-year-old colt in training, G1 Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile winner Life Is Good, is in Florida with Todd Pletcher training up to a start in the G1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 29.

Sadler, according to Daily Racing Form's Steve Andersen, is looking at a possible start in the G1 Met Mile on the June 11 Belmont Stakes day card for Flightline and possibly three other starts in 2022.

“John will steer the ship,” Finley said when asked about possible races for Flightline. “He's done so well. He's been training 40 years, and it's really something to see his passion and intensity – not just John's but the whole barn. John's assistant, Juan Leyva, is talking about this horse in a way that I've never heard someone at a barn say before. Rene Quinteros, the barn foreman, every single day at 4:15 in the morning, walks this horse for 30 minutes. Everyone is just zeroed in on him.”

Ingordo has been down this road previously with one of the greatest horses of the modern era, Zenyatta, who didn't lose a race until her 20^th and final career start, coming up a head short of Blame in the 2010 Breeders' Cup Classic at Churchill Downs.

“John has referred to Flightline as his Zenyatta,” Ingordo said.

“We've all been let down before,” Ingordo said of horses that showed early promise then failed to sustain it. “That's why when you expect a great performance and everybody has done everything right and then it really happens, it's that jaw-dropping.

“This one does everything so easily,” he added. “He's so smart. He's got it all. We're not looking to rush him off to the (breeding) shed. We want to run, just as much as the fans want to see him run. We might have to temper our desire to run more than the fans do. But you know how it goes sometimes. Horses will laugh at our plans.”

There's no telling just what Flightline may be capable of doing. Let's just hope he has the opportunity to show us.

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‘He’s A Freak’: Flightline Soars To Third Consecutive Daylight Victory In Runhappy Malibu

In a performance that lived up to the hype and then some, John Sadler's freakishly good Flightline waltzed to an 11 ½-length victory in the traditional winter-spring opening day feature at Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif., the Grade 1, $300,000 Runhappy Malibu Stakes. Ridden by Flavien Prat, Flightline, who is now unbeaten in three starts by a combined 37 ½ lengths, got seven furlongs in 1:21.37.

Never challenged at any point, Flightline fairly jogged home in a manner that reminded veteran players of some of the best sprinters that have ever graced the Santa Anita main track. With Prat sitting dead still turning for home, the colt actually seemed to hit his best stride on the gallop out into the clubhouse turn.

“I was in cruise control the whole race, galloping freely,” said Prat. “He was quite impressive. I wanted to get a good position and get myself into the race. My idea was to get out there running and see what happened. He has been brilliant so far. He really has been quite amazing.”

A 12 ¾-length allowance winner going six furlongs on Sept. 5 at Del Mar, Flightline, a bay colt by Tapit, was off at 2-5 in a field of seven sophomores and paid $2.80, $2.40 and $2.20.

“I've been stressing the last 20, 30 or 40 days getting ready for today,” said Sadler. “The next race is up to the horse. We have to be true to the horse. We will chart the course from there. This horse is so brilliant. This is not an ordinary horse, this is a very special horse. We want to do right by the horse and all other things will fall into place. He was late getting here. He had a foot bruise at Del Mar, so we backed off. After Flavien (Prat) got off him the last time, he said this horse can go further. He'll go a distance the next time. There is a lot of pressure on you, but it is the pressure you want. It's like the high school coach for LeBron. You know you have something special and he is much the best. This horse is there. You just don't want to screw it up.”

Owned by Hronis Racing, LLC, Siena Farm LLC, Summer Wind Equine, LLC, West Point Thoroughbreds and Woodford Racing LLC, Flightline, who is out of the Indian Charlie mare Feathered, picked up $180,000 for the win, increasing his earnings to $259,800.

“It's always great to see a great racehorse stay on the racetrack and run as long as he can,” said co-owner Kosta Hronis. “We hope we can see Flightline put up a terrific year.”

“We hoped to win this, but to do this against this kind of field, this was the real class test for him and I think he answered it the way we thought he would.” said Woodford Racing's Bill Farish.

West Point's Terry Finley added that “this is a very special horse and I'd just like to say thank you to John Sadler and the team and to David Ingordo who picked this horse out, and Bill Farish who sold the horse, and Jane Lyon who bred the horse.”

Flightline was bred in Kentucky by Lyon's Summer Wind Equine.

In a separate race, Baby Yoda, an attentive third to the top of the lane, outfinished Stilleto Boy by a length for the place. Ridden by Jose Ortiz, Baby Yoda was off at 16-1 and paid $8.40 and $4.60.

“If Flightline isn't there, I win. He's a freak,” said Ortiz.

Ridden by Kent Desormeaux, Stilleto Boy finished 6 ¼ lengths clear of Triple Tap and paid $4.00 to show while off at 19-1.

Fractions on the race, all set by the winner, were 22.01, 44.48 and 1:08.72.

Run as the 10^th race on an 11-race opening day card, the Runhappy Malibu was one of six stakes on the program.

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