Undefeated 3-Year-Old Life Is Good, Now In Pletcher’s Barn, Expected To Return In Jerkens

Undefeated sophomore colt Life Is Good, formerly in the barn of embattled trainer Bob Baffert but now conditioned by Todd Pletcher, is expected to make his return to the races in the Grade 1 Allen Jerkens Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 28, reports the Daily Racing Form.

The son of Into Mischief has not raced since March due to injury, when he was sent to his co-owner WinStar Farm to recover. WinStar trainer Destin Heath had the colt in training at Keeneland until mid-July, when he was shipped up to Pletcher' barn in New York. Life Is Good has now breezed twice at Saratoga since his arrival. WinStar's Elliott Walden indicated that the Jerkens will be used a step toward a return to two-turn races later in the year.

Also pointed to the Jerkens are Jackie's Warrior, last weekend's runaway winner of the G2 Amsterdam for trainer Steve Asmussen, as well as Pletcher trainee Following Sea, elevated to second last out in the G1 Haskell.

“That's our current target,” Pletcher told DRF of Life is Good and the Jerkens. “See how the horse continues to train, but you're not going to find any easy spots to come back in, I wouldn't think.”

Read more at the Daily Racing Form.

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Mandaloun Put Up In Haskell, Hot Rod Charlie DQd

After a heart-stopping incident in the stretch, and heated battle to the wire between Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) and 'TDN Rising Star' Mandaloun (Into Mischief) in Saturday's GI Haskell Invitational S. at Monmouth, the former crossed the line a nose to the good, only to be taken all the way down to last and Juddmonte's Mandaloun crowned the official winner. With the win, Mandaloun earned an automatic berth to the GI Breeders' Cup Classic later this year.

Stretching-out 'Rising Star' Following Sea (Runhappy) seized the early lead entering the first turn as Hot Rod Charlie pressed in second with Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow) glued to his outside. Mandaloun saved ground just in behind. The field spread out down the backside, with Hot Rod Charlie showing a bit more rateability than he had when second in the GI Belmont S. to drop back and relax in third as Midnight Bourbon took over prompting duties. Mandaloun began to pick up the bit and travel strongly after a :47.32 half, and pilot Florent Geroux still had his mount under a tight hold as Midnight Bourbon struck the front following six panels in 1:10.64. Hot Rod Charlie quickly swarmed the new lead, and Mandaloun came off the fence to pass the tiring Following Sea. It was clear by midstretch that Hot Rod Charlie and Mandaloun were going to decide the outcome, but as they came together to begin their tussle, Midnight Bourbon was squeezed out from in between them and nearly went down, flinging rider Paco Lopez to the ground. The top two continued their battle to the end, with Midnight Bourbon picking himself up and galloping out apparently uninjured. Following Sea was more than 18 lengths back in third, but benefitted from the DQ himself, as he almost certainly would've finished fourth in a cleanly run race.

Lopez, removed from the track on a stretcher, escaped with just a soft tissue injury to his knee and ankle.

“I had my sights on Hot Rod Charlie,” said Geroux. “When Hot Rod Charlie tipped out I decided to go inside. It was a very hard battle. Hot Rod Charlie was going to win by a neck and right at the end my horse came back and made it really close. Unfortunately for Hot Rod Charlie he came in and Midnight Bourbon clipped his heels and he got disqualified. I feel bad for the connections of Hot Rod Charlie because he ran a hard race and [jockey] Flavien Prat is a good friend of mine. I kind of feel bad for him. Honestly, I didn't know what happened until I came back and looked at the TV. It is not the best way to win by Mandaloun ran a winning race and deserves this.”

Prat, who issued an apology to Lopez, said, “I am really proud of [Hot Road Charlie's] effort. He just clipped my heels. That's it.”

Saturday, Monmouth Park
TVG.COM HASKELL S.-GI, $1,005,000, Monmouth, 7-17, 3yo, 1 1/8m, 1:47.38, ft.
1–MANDALOUN, 119, c, 3, by Into Mischief
                1st Dam: Brooch (MGSW-Ire, $217,059), by Empire Maker
                2nd Dam: Daring Diva (GB), by Dansili (GB)
                3rd Dam: Aspiring Diva, by Distant View
   1ST GRADE I WIN. 'TDN Rising Star'. O-Juddmonte;
B-Juddmonte Farms Inc (KY); T-Brad H. Cox; J-Florent Geroux.
$600,000. Lifetime Record: 8-5-1-1, $1,651,252. Click for
   eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. Werk Nick Rating: A+++.
   *Triple Plus*.
2–Following Sea, 119, c, 3, Runhappy–Quick Flip, by
Speightstown. 'TDN Rising Star'. O/B-Spendthrift Farm LLC
(KY); T-Todd A. Pletcher. $200,000.
3–Antigravity, 119, c, 3, First Samurai–Port Charlotte, by Blame.
($4,000 Ylg '19 FTKOCT). O-Hollendorfer, LLC & Dennis
January;  B-Glen Oak Farm & Two Stamps Stables (KY); T-Jerry
Hollendorfer. $100,000.
Margins: 18 1/4, 4HF, 13 1/4. Odds: 3.10, 3.60, 56.50.
Also Ran: Pickin' Time, Basso, Midnight Bourbon, Hot Rod Charlie. Click for the Equibase.com chart, the TJCIS.com PPs or the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree. VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.

This was Mandaloun's first official Grade I victory, but he may earn a second–via a different kind of DQ–if current GI Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit (Protonico) is ultimately stripped of his title due to a betamethasone positive.

A winner of his first two tries, Mandaloun was third on the stretch out behind Midnight Bourbon in the GIII Lecomte S. at Fair Grounds in January before breakout win with blinkers added in the GII Risen Star S. a month later. He was a head-scratching sixth when Hot Rod Charlie invaded from California to take the GII Louisiana Derby Mar. 20, but belied nearly 27-1 odds to finish a half-length behind Medina Spirit–and ahead of Hot Rod Charlie by the same margin–in the Derby. Mandaloun prepped for the Haskell with a neck success in the June 13 Pegasus S.

“We got a really good trip,” Mandaloun's trainer Brad Cox said. “I thought it was a lot like our Kentucky Derby trip. He was saving ground. Florent did a good job of getting on the outside of Following Sea. Turning for home I thought we had a big shot at winning the race. I thought we ran a winning race. Didn't have our nose down at the wire, but all and all it worked out. I'm proud of the effort and the performance. He's always been a good colt, he has always been highly thought of. He deserves a Grade I victory. He's a Grade I horse and I'm glad it worked out today.”

As for the incident and subsequent DQ, last year's Eclipse-winning conditioner said, “Someone watching the race next to me said Hot Rod Charlie may come down. I was so focused watching Mandoloun I didn't see the horse go down. It looked like he clipped heels, but I was not sure what happened. I was not sure if that horse ducked in behind Hot Rod Charlie or if Hot Rod Charlie came over on him. Once I saw the head-on and the replay I saw it. It didn't take them long to change it and it was pretty obvious they would make a change.”

Cox also trains GI Belmont S. winner Essential Quality (Tapit), who is expected to make his next start in the GII Jim Dandy S. in two weeks.

“Both [Essential Quality and Mandaloun] have obviously been campaigned since last fall and all of 2021,” Cox said. “We're going to ship Mandaloun up to Saratoga and let him catch his breath. We'll catch our breath. Myself and Garrett [O'Rourke, manager of Juddmonte's U.S. division] will come up with a game plan in the near future. No need to make a decision now.”

O'Rourke said, “Ultimately I think Brad followed a very good plan. We got one over the track. He trained up here as well and we're sitting here today so we have to consider it a success.

“I know he's a genuine Grade I horse. There's no fluke to the way the horse runs. It's good that the horse justified how good a runner he is. He's a beautifully bred horse and he was extremely well prepared. We're extremely proud. It was an unusual race but we still feel like he ran a winning race and it tastes the same.”

Juddmonte founder Khalid Abdullah passed away this January at 84.

Pedigree Notes:

Mandaloun is the 10th Grade I winner for Into Mischief, who also has 98 stakes winners and 43 graded winners. The Spendthrift super sire had another stellar week in the sales ring as well–he was responsible for three of the four priciest yearlings at Fasig-Tipton July, including the $800,000 topper.

Former Juddmonte colorbearer Empire Maker has now produced the dams of seven Grade I winners, including three this year (Silver State {Hard Spun} and Rock Your World {Candy Ride [Arg]}).

Mandaloun is a fourth-generation homebred for his powerhouse operation. Juddmonte purchased his fourth dam Queen of Song (His Majesty) for $700,000 in foal to Seattle Slew at Keeneland November back in 1989. Mandaloun's dam Brooch is a two-time group winner in Europe and a half-sister to MSW & MGSP Caponata (Selkirk). He is her second foal and the 10-year-old mare has since produced a pair of colts by Into Mischief and a War Front colt this April. This is also the family of Irish Highweight Emulous (GB) (Dansili {GB}) and Group victor First Sitting (GB) (Dansili {GB}).

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This Side Up: Haskell Throwbacks to the Future

So the big question is whether the out-of-town jocks, in the heat of a $1-million battle for the GI TVG.com Haskell S., can master the instinct to reach for the whip?

If any lifelong flagellants are anxious of their self-discipline, then they need only play back the 1988 running and remind themselves how Laffit Pincay, Jr. coaxed Forty Niner home, in withering heat, by a nose from Seeking the Gold. The whip is unsheathed, for sure, but so seamlessly with the horse's own efforts that the overall effect is like watching St. Francis of Assisi helping a fledgling back into its nest.

If only wider standards of horsemanship had maintained similar levels of empathy, then our house might never have become so divided against itself. As it stands, any hope that people might someday look back at Saturday's race after an equivalent interval of years may depend on the outcome of the experiment being boldly embraced this year, in defiance of some aggressive lobbying, by the New Jersey Racing Commission.

Like it or not, a first Grade I race without recourse to the whip feels like a big moment in the story of the American Turf. Our community has to remember two things. One is that we tend to be inured to the shock experienced by the layman who comes fresh to the ugly coercions of cruder riders. And the other, closely related, is that public policy in these matters will always be driven by mass perception, rather than any informed mitigations grasped by those inside the business. As one leading driver has wisely acknowledged of harness racing: “It doesn't matter if it's real or perceived. In our game, once it's perceived, it becomes real.”

Forty Niner prevails in the 1988 Haskell | Equi-Photo

As it happens, pretty much the same might be said of the damage done to our sport by the charges against the Derby winner, which loom over the Haskell even in the absence of a trainer who last year won it for a record ninth time. For these leave the Derby runner-up Mandaloun (Into Mischief) striving awkwardly to live up to his potential promotion, and the burden of the accompanying asterisk; while Following Sea (Runhappy) has meanwhile defected from Bob Baffert's barn after Spendthrift “hit the pause button” on their association.

Whatever the ultimate determination of due process, in this particular instance, overall it seems fair to ask Baffert to understand that you can't push regulatory boundaries without doing the same to public confidence. He would not be the only trainer to view a veterinary toolbox rather as many jockeys do the whip, as somehow combining their own competitive interests with those of the horse. (Precepts of health and safety certainly seem usefully flexible.) But it is a wider failure to deal adequately with more flagrant offenders, whether with the crop or pharmaceuticals, that has only encouraged the wider world in judgements, however superficial, that authentically menace our sport's survival.

Races like this one, as cherished staging posts in our calendar, remind us that we are only ever passing a baton from one hand to the next. Pincay and Forty Niner are part of Monmouth Park heritage–and so, too, is the Virgil “Buddy” Raines Distinguished Achievement Award conferred on Baffert in 2015 for his commitment to the Haskell. Devised to salute integrity and professionalism in the service of New Jersey racing, this is exactly the kind of honor that should reinforce in its recipient an obligation to take no risks with the reputation of his community.

Buddy Raines, after all, was the incarnation of the fine character that can be drawn out of humankind by the Thoroughbred. His 80-year Turf career began when a trainer passing through rural Illinois was given hospitality by his parents. Gazing at so many hungry brothers seated round the table, the guest wistfully remarked that he could do with a strong young helper to help around the barn. “Well, hell, take that one,” said Mr. Raines, pointing at Virgil.

Buddy Raines came to mind this week on the passing of Hall of Fame jockey John L. Rotz, with whom he shared a career pinnacle in the 1962 GI Preakness S. won by Greek Money. Rotz had an exemplary career, working his way up from hotwalker to Midwest fairs to the George Woolf Memorial Award, and the manners that earned him the soubriquet “Gentleman John” also extended to his mounts, gaining him a particular reputation for the management of difficult temperaments.

Greek Money's Preakness is remembered best for Joseph di Paola's iconic photograph of Manny Ycaza on Ridan apparently trying to elbow Rotz as their tumultuous stretch duel neared the line. (Nor was Ycaza done, then having the temerity to lodge an objection for interference.) Rotz later absolved his rival of any contact, but also wondered whether Ycaza might have won had he confined himself to riding his own horse, rather than trying to control both.

Rotz rode enough good horses virtually to guarantee that you'll find his fingerprints somewhere behind the Haskell winner. In Mandaloun himself, for instance, the second dam of his sire is by Stop the Music, famously awarded the Champagne S. after Rotz took exception to a brief deviation in Secretariat's march to greatness; while Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow) is by a grandson of Relaunch, whose sire In Reality and damsire The Axe II were both partnered by Rotz.

Midnight Bourbon arriving Thursday at Monmouth | Bill Denver/Equi-Photo

It's a fascinating race, pitching three Classic runners-up against the flagship of Runhappy's brilliant revival after a disappointing freshman campaign. Trying a second turn against elite opposition will certainly tell us what substance may underpin the dazzling style of Following Sea, but many neutrals will be hoping for a merited Grade I success for Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow). As has been widely celebrated, “Chuck” set the fastest opening quarter in the long history of the GI Belmont S., and a :46.49 half bettered only by Secretariat, yet retained the reserves to pull 11 lengths clear of the rest in harrying crop leader Essential Quality (Tapit) all the way down the stretch. Perhaps the sport might have been spared much of its present embarrassment if he had been ridden with similar aggression in the Derby, instead of gifting control to Medina Spirit (Protonico), but the notion that he can eyeball a rival even better without blinkers (as well as without the whip) looks an intriguing gamble.

However things play out between them, the fact that all three of the Triple Crown protagonists converging here completed their springtime preparations in the GII Louisiana Derby means that there is already one guaranteed winner. And that's the Fair Grounds management, for having the enterprise to stretch out a race that has come to seem too close to the first Saturday in May–too close for the trainers of today, at any rate–to permit equivalent grounding with another rehearsal in between.

We credit much of “Chuck's pluck” to Oxbow, whose ardent Triple Crown campaign so shames the current crop–not one of whom contested all three legs this time round. True, the Mid-Atlantic stalwart Raines chose to sit out the Derby to bring Greek Money relatively fresh to the Preakness, but that didn't stop him running in the local prep race the previous Saturday. Who knows? Even as a son of Oxbow, Chuck might not have been able to dig so deep in the Belmont had he also contested the Preakness. But he's certainly made of the right stuff.

That, and an ownership team that transcends generations, gives us plenty of optimism for the future of the game. A precious commodity, right now, but this is a race (and racetrack) that has always engaged dynamically with challenges. That's how we can try a Haskell without whips; a Haskell with a $1-million bonus backed by the operators of a pioneering venture in fixed-odds wagering; a Haskell headlining a meet of boosted purses and turnstiles clicking cheerfully once again.

So, if it can also be a Haskell that honors the memory of “Gentleman” John Rotz, and indeed that of Buddy Raines, then people out there might once again start to accept our claims that we treat every horse right–not because of rules and regulations, nor because of cosmetics, but because it wouldn't even occur to us to do anything else.

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Triple Crown Heavy Hitters Reconvene in Haskell

The runners-up in all three Triple Crown races—though one of them may be promoted to winner at a later date—will clash along with a very intriguing stretch-out sprinter Saturday at Monmouth in a quality renewal of the GI TVG.com Haskell S., a “Win and You're In” qualifier for the GI Longines Breeders' Cup Classic.

Pegged as the 6-5 morning-line favorite is Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow), who ran the best race of the three Triple Crown returnees when finishing a hard-luck second to division leader Essential Quality (Tapit) in the GI Belmont S. June 5. Pushed through a scorching early pace of :22.78 and :46.49, the $110,000 Fasig-Tipton October bargain buy improbably fought on with tenacity until deep stretch, just being overtaken late for a 1 1/4-length defeat while finishing 11 1/4 lengths clear of GI Preakness S. hero Rombauer (Twirling Candy) in third. The two horses who fought him for the early lead finished sixth and eighth, beaten 22 and 81 lengths, respectively. Prior to that, Hot Rod Charlie had annexed the GII Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby, run third in the GI Kentucky Derby and GIII Robert B. Lewis and second at 94-1 in the GI TVG Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

Mandaloun (Into Mischief) is likely to be declared the Derby winner after running a half-length second to Medina Spirit (Protonico), who later famously tested over the limit for betamethasone. That was a bounce-back effort for the 'TDN Rising Star' after he was a badly-beaten sixth as a 13-10 favorite in the Louisiana Derby. Earlier the winner of the GII Risen Star S. at Fair Grounds, the Juddmonte homebred was last seen holding on by a neck in the local Pegasus S. June 13.

“What this would do for this colt moving forward would be huge,” said trainer Brad Cox of winning the Haskell. “It would give him an opportunity to stand at Juddmonte, which is the goal, and when you win that first Grade I, it takes the pressure off of what you do moving forward. This would be huge for the whole Juddmonte team. It would mean the world to me. I love this colt, he's been one we've thought a lot of since late summer/early fall, and when you watch him train and you think they're good and then they show up, it's very rewarding. For him to accomplish what he has to date is amazing, but there are definitely some more hurdles to jump and we think he's capable of doing it.”

Winless since capturing the GIII Lecomte S. Jan. 16 at Fair Grounds, Winchell Thoroughbreds' Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow) was third to Mandaloun in the Risen Star and second to Hot Rod Charlie in the Louisiana Derby. Sixth with a wide trip in the Run for the Roses, the $525,000 Keeneland September buy held the place after pressing Medina Spirit through quick splits when last seen in the May 15 Preakness S.

The clear wild card in the race is immensely talented 'Rising Star' Following Sea (Runhappy), who will make his two-turn debut while breaking from the tricky rail draw. A runner-up, later demoted to third via disqualification debuting at 9-10 over six furlongs Mar. 6 at Santa Anita, the Spendthrift Farm earned his 'Rising Star' nod with a dominant graduation over the same trip Apr. 10 at Oaklawn. Transferred from Bob Baffert to Todd Pletcher at the outset of the Medina Spirit controversy, Following Sea overwhelmed an allowance field June 3 at Belmont with an easy 6 1/2-length romp.

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