Thursday Insights: Tapit Homebred Stars At Aqueduct

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1st-AQU, $85K, Msw, 2yo, f, 6f, 12:20 p.m.

Owned and bred by Mr. Joseph Alen, BILOXI BLUES (Tapit) makes her first start for trainer Shug McGaughey at the Big A Thursday. Out of the winning Speightstown mare Accepting, herself a half-sister to MGSW Campaign (Curlin), Biloxi Blues hails from the extended female family of GISW Acoma (Empire Maker), GISW and leading sire Arch (Kris S.), dual champion & MGISW Covfefe (Into Mischief), and MGSW & MG1SP Albiano (Harlan's Holiday). Her last work from the gate was a near-bullet four furlongs in :47 (2/167) Oct. 22 and she picks up jockey Dylan Davis for her afternoon debut. TJCIS PPS

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Background Check: Del Mar Debutante

In this continuing series, we examine the past winners of significant filly/mare races by the lasting influence they've had on the breed. Up today is the GI TVG Del Mar Debutante S., a race with a surprising amount of repercussion on the sport.

First run the year before Queen Elizabeth II took the throne, the Del Mar Debutante has seen 72 winners, with D. Wayne Lukas and Bob Baffert together combining for more than a quarter of those visits to the winner's circle. It's been run on Polytrack; it's been run in two divisions; and it's been run at seven-eighths since 1994 after stints at six and eight furlongs. The 2-year-old filly event was officially designated a Grade I in 1999.

With the storied history and sheer volume of big-league filly/mare contests focused at Saratoga over the summer, other tracks–even those as spectacular as Del Mar–can be overshadowed. But every now and then a race, like the Del Mar Debutante, has a list of past winners that pops up on the radar. While not all of the Debutante's victresses have been stellar broodmares, there have been a few that have more than held their own. The list may not be long, but it's top notch.

Following are the some of the most important Del Mar Debutante winners by what impact they have had on the breed through their sons and daughters.

Althea (1981, Alydar–Courtly Dee, by Never Bend): A champion 2-year-old who died at just 14 in a paddock accident, this mare–bred by the partnership of Helen Groves, Helen Alexander, and David Aykroyd–produced four stakes winners from her five foals, including Japanese champion Yamanin Paradise and GSW Destiny Dance. Her daughters and granddaughters have been responsible for GISW and influential sire Arch, U.S. champion Covfefe, UAE champion Festival of Light, and GISWs Acoma and Balletto (UAE). From an extended family that just keeps giving, it's all but a certainty that even more will bubble to the surface as time goes by from Althea's branch of her Broodmare of the Year dam.

Terlingua (1976, Secretariat–Crimson Saint, by Crimson Satan): There a substantial list of stakes performers who trace to this Tom Gentry-bred chestnut, including MGISW Ticker Tape (GB), English G1SW Crowded House (GB), and French G1SW Brando (GB), but it's her GISW son, Storm Cat, who launched a legacy. Christened the leading sire, broodmare sire, and juvenile sire in the U.S.–all multiple times–he simply redefined the breed. After standing for multiple years at $500,000 as the premier sire in the land, Storm Cat has left reverberations still felt today even though he was pensioned 14 years ago and died a few years later.

Brown Berry (1960, Mount Marcy–Brown Baby, by Phalanx): This C. V. Whitney-bred mare is a bit of an outlier, as it would be a challenge to find her in any top pedigrees of today. However, as one of history's rare broodmares to produce more than one Classic winner–and on each side of the Atlantic, to boot–she surely deserves a mention. Her son Avatar won the 1975 GI Belmont S. (and two other Grade Is) and another son, Hours After, won the 1988 G1 Prix du Jockey Club. She also produced two other major stakes winners, as well as five more stakes performers.

Tonga (1949, Polynesian–Tirl, by Tick On): Winner of the very first Del Mar Debutante, Tonga didn't have a single stakes winner among her five foals. However, one of her daughters produced three black-type winners and daughters who would beget, among others, GI Kentucky Oaks winner Gal in a Ruckus, MGISW Habibti, and Canadian Broodmare of the Year No Class, who would be the foundation mare of Sam-Son Farm. The long list of Canadian champions produced by No Class and her daughters include Classy 'n Smart, Sky Classic, and Regal Classic, while her granddaughter Dance Smartly was also a U.S. champion and her grandson Smart Strike was a two-time leading sire in the U.S. whose son, two-time Horse of the Year Curlin, is among the top sires in the U.S. Not a year goes by without the far-reaching effect on both sides of the border of No Class.

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LNJ Foxwoods Re-Focuses Stable

The Roth family's LNJ Foxwoods announced plans to move its Southern California-based horses east and re-focus its racing stable on the East Coast, Canada and Kentucky circuits. A Sunday afternoon tweet from Jaime Roth read, “LNJ Foxwoods has made the difficult decision to take a break from having horses stabled year-round in Southern California. With our family based in New York and one of our advisors, Alex Solis, II of Solis/Litt, having relocated to Lexington, we would like to focus on the East Coast, Canada and Kentucky circuits at this time. Our horses in training in Southern California will be moved east to continue their careers under the care of Josie Carroll, Brad Cox, Bill Mott, Todd Pletcher, and Brendan Walsh.”

Roth continued, “We have thoroughly enjoyed our time in Southern California and celebrated many milestones there, including winning the GI Breeders' Cup F&M Sprint with Covfefe at Santa Anita. In particular, we would like to thank Richard Mandella and his team for their tireless work and dedication to our horses and all those in his care. Richard has done a terrific job for our stable and we have enjoyed so much success together.”

In the same tweet, Roth announced the retirement of the family's multiple graded stakes winner United (Giant's Causeway). Trained by Mandella, the 7-year-old gelding won the 2020 and 2021 renewals of the GII John Henry Turf Championship S., as well as the 2021 GII Eddie Read S. He was second in the 2019 GI Breeders' Cup Turf. On the board in 15 of 22 starts, United won 10 times and earned $1,813,549.

“He will remain a part of the LNJ family and is being retired as our riding horse in Kentucky, where we hope he will enjoy his second career just as much as his first,” Roth tweeted.LNJ

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Into Mischief Again Scaling New Heights

As both prototype and paragon for a whole new era in commercial breeding, Into Mischief can increasingly be measured only against himself. Last year, in retaining the general sires' championship he had won for the first time in 2019, the Spendthrift phenomenon became the first North American stallion to break the $20-million barrier in progeny earnings. He ended up on $22,507,940, bulldozing Tapit's 2016 haul of $19,914,317. Now, as an overlooked consequence of Breeders' Cup success for his latest star Life Is Good, Into Mischief has surged past his own record and by Thursday was standing at $22,929,735. He has meanwhile also raised another of his highest bars, 221 individual winners in 2019, to 237–and obviously still has a few weeks to add to these tallies.

(All these stats, incidentally, are accessible on TDN's database.    Prizemoney is difficult to standardize in a global sport, but some models favor selective compression of certain overseas earnings. So long as they are applied consistently, however, Into Mischief will be breaking new ground in 2021.)

What makes this latest campaign so remarkable is the sheer spread of his cavalry. His principal earner is Mandaloun, currently on $1,560,000. While that sum may well be revised, once the agonizing GI Kentucky Derby saga is concluded, as things stand Mandaloun has banked just 6.8% of his sire's total for the year.

Compare that with Ghostzapper, who leads the pack gasping in pursuit: Mystic Guide has contributed 48.7% of his $15,201,047. This, of course, is just the latest measure of vulnerability in a sires' championship historically determined by prizemoney, following the advent of megaprizes such as the one Mystic Guide won in Dubai in March. In 2017, Arrogate secured Unbridled's Song posthumous laurels by banking 71.2% of his total, largely through his wins in the GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational and then in Dubai. Otherwise his sire would have finished 44th. The Gulfstream race's loss in value since has somewhat reduced the potential for distortion, but someday a horse is going to win both the G1 Saudi Cup and G1 Dubai World Cup and it won't matter if he's by a sire long since exported to Peru: they'll be able to call the championship more or less on the spot.

In the meantime, then, let's be grateful for a stallion performing such a valuable service for the integrity of the annals. Last time round, admittedly, Horse of the Year Authentic did pour over $7 million into his sire's coffers, representing 31.9% of his total, but Into Mischief was so dominant that he would still have been champion even without that contribution.      His advantage over runner-up Medaglia d'Oro was just shy of $10 million, by worldwide earnings. Measured by domestic income only, taking the Darley stallion's Hong Kong goldmine Golden Sixty out of the equation, Into Mischief earned more than runner-up Uncle Mo and third-placed Curlin combined.

In winning his maiden championship the previous year, moreover, Into Mischief owed just 5.5% of a haul exceeding

$19 million to chief earner Covfefe. He had also become the first North American stallion to produce more than 200 individual winners in a calendar year. He can only be so prolific, naturally, because of his farm's familiar business model. Aided by helpful levels of fertility and libido, he has maintained enormous books even as his fee has soared. True, his elevation to $225,000 last spring reduced his book to “just” 214, down from an eye-watering 250 at $175,000 in 2019. But let's not forget how efficiently he has vindicated the hope that superior mares would stretch his trademark speed into a second turn. Yes, there had already been auspicious straws in the wind, Owendale and Audible both emerging from cheap early books to finish strongly for placings in Triple Crown races. Should Mandaloun be duly promoted, however, his sire will have conceived consecutive Derby winners at fees still no higher than $45,000, in the case of Authentic, and $75,000, for Mandaloun–along with Life Is Good, whose performance in the GI Dirt Mile at Del Mar consolidated his claims as the most flamboyant talent of the year, if not quite yet the most accomplished. (How Eclipse voters would love to know the outcome of his projected Pegasus showdown with Knicks Go (Paynter)…)

Into Mischief's next crop of sophomores will be his first conceived at a six-figure fee, so we can be confident that he is going to keep setting standards. Quite where the story will finish, who can say? He's obviously now working on his profile as a sire of sires, a promising start having emboldened commercial breeders into the same kind of numbers game that Into Mischief has played so well himself. Indeed, the three biggest books assembled in North America last spring were all corralled by sons of Into Mischief: Goldencents, his trailblazer, and Authentic covered 230 and 229 mares respectively from the same barn; while Practical Joke welcomed 223 to Ashford. Other busy young sons include Instagrand, who entertained 190 at TaylorMade; and Audible, who received just one fewer at WinStar. Back at Spendthrift, meanwhile, Maximus Mischief added another 171 mares to the 196 he covered in his debut season. There's no shortage of more affordable alternatives, then, for those priced out by Into Mischief's latest hike to $250,000.

No stallion permits complacency. Into Mischief is now rising 17, and the final reckoning plainly depends on how long he remains favored by such robust health. As it is, this year he passed another landmark as the third-quickest American stallion to $100 million in progeny earnings. The two who preceded him have just exchanged the baton, Tapit overtaking the late Giant's Causeway at the top of the all-time table. Tapit is four years older than Into Mischief, and Gainesway have promised to deploy him with due restraint for the rest of his career. So while Tapit for now remains well clear ($177,178,898 plays $107,240,883), he will already be looking anxiously over his shoulder given the exponential swell, in both quality and quantity, behind Into Mischief since he won his early battle against the odds.

That story has been told too often to need reprising here; likewise, how the extraordinary Tricky Creek mare Leslie's Lady kindled a breed-shaper from an Ohio-bred son of Harlan (himself author of one stakes win and 99 named foals). But it is certainly apt that Into Mischief should this year have found new ways to honor the man who supervised his rise, alongside the audacious revival of Spendthrift. The loss of B. Wayne Hughes in August refreshed us all in his own rags-to-riches tale, one that will forever echo in our esteem for this extraordinary stallion.

Nonetheless we know that Into Mischief's percentages, between the ordinary caliber of his early mates and the sheer volume of his output since, will never be quite as impressive as the rest of his resumé. Comparing their ratios of elite performers, indeed, Curlin deserves saluting for the better year of the pair: each has had 12 graded stakes winners, but Curlin from just 251 starters as against 430 for Into Mischief. (The Hill 'n' Dale sire, moreover, claims five of those at Grade I level–one more than Into Mischief.)

That's useful perspective, for sure, and contains important challenges for the industry. We have to be careful about acclaiming a year of unprecedented achievement for a stallion, when in some respects he cannot even match one of his contemporary rivals. That said, few will argue with maintaining black-type performers, through these last five breakthrough years, at around 13, 13, 14, 15 and 15% of quite so many starters. In the long story of the breed, few stallions have earned and then taken their chances quite like Into Mischief.

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