Grade 1 Winner Fighting Mad Retired, To Be Bred To Curlin In 2021

Fighting Mad, a California-based Grade 1 winner, has been retired from racing and will be bred to Hall of Famer Curlin during the 2021 breeding season, Daily Racing Form and BloodHorse report.

The 6-year-old daughter of New Year's Day won five of 10 starts during her on-track career, earning $472,008 as a homebred for Gary and Mary West and trained by Bob Baffert. Her biggest win came last year when she led at every point of call in the Grade 1 Clement L. Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar, which was preceded by a front-running victory in the G2 Santa Maria Stakes at Santa Anita Park.

In 2019, Fighting Mad earned her first career graded stakes win, when she took the G3 Torrey Pines Stakes at Del Mar in gate-to-wire fashion.

Curlin, a 17-year-old son of Smart Strike, stands at Hill 'n' Dale at Xalapa in Paris, Ky., for an advertised fee of $175,000. He is the sire of Preakness Stakes winner Exaggerator, Belmont Stakes winner Palace Malice, Breeders' Cup Classic winner Vino Rosso, and champions Good Magic and Stellar Wind.

Owner Gary West told Bloodhorse that Fighting Mad would be boarded at Dell Ridge Farm in Lexington, Ky.

Read more at Daily Racing Form and BloodHorse.

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Street Sense Colt Takes Centerstage on Debut for ‘Rising Star’ Honors

Concert Tour (c, 3, Street Sense–Purse Strings, by Tapit) rolled home to an ultra-impressive debut score for Hall of Famer Bob Baffert for ‘TDN Rising Star’ honors at Santa Anita Friday.

The Gary and Mary West homebred’s worktab included a six-furlong bullet in 1:13 (1/11) in Arcadia Jan. 1 and was backed accordingly as the the even-money favorite while debuting with blinkers and Lasix.

He sat a looming presence in second in the early stages and tugged his way to the front under an absolute hammer lock three furlongs from home. The handsome dark bay hit the quarter pole with his ears up awaiting his cue from Joel Rosario, kicked for home in complete command with Rosario still sitting chilly and was never seriously asked in the stretch en route to an effortless 3 1/2-length decision. Mr. Impossible (Munnings) was second.

The final time for six furlongs was 1:10.40.

Baffert, of course, also trained Street Sense’s ‘Rising Star’ McKinzie to four Grade I victories and also saddled the Darley stallion’s comebacking Happier to a flashy debut score at Del Mar last summer.

Purse Strings, a $240,000 KEESEP yearling graduate, won one of 12 starts carrying the Wests’ hot pink-and-black silks. She had a colt by Lookin At Lucky in 2020 and was bred back to American Freedom.

This is the extended female family of 2008 champion 2-year-old filly Stardom Bound (Tapit), who brought $5.7 million at Fasig-Tipton November following her victory in the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

Gary and Mary West also bred graded winner Air Strike, another son of Street Sense out of a Tapit mare.

4th-Santa Anita, $61,000, Msw, 1-15, 3yo, 6f, 1:10.40, ft, 3 1/2 lengths.
CONCERT TOUR, c, 3, by Street Sense
1st Dam: Purse Strings, by Tapit
2nd Dam: My Red Porsche, by Mt. Livermore
3rd Dam: Wind Chime, by Marfa
Lifetime Record: 1-1-0-0, $36,600. Click for the Equibase.com chart, VIDEO, sponsored by Fasig-Tipton or free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
O-Gary & Mary West; B-Gary & Mary West Stables Inc. (KY); T-Bob Baffert.

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Bloodlines Presented By Diamond B Farm’s Rowayton: Life Is Getting Interesting For Life Is Good

The name of the winner of the 2021 Sham Stakes might as well be the year's motto: Life is Good.

And getting better.

The dark bay son of Into Mischief (by Harlan's Holiday) had won a maiden on his debut that staggered the speed figure makers, as the colt coasted home by 9 1/2 lengths on Nov. 22 at Del Mar. The sheets and graphs and figs were all very strong on this powerful-looking bay, and Life is Good had been working well and looking good in the meantime.

In the meantime, both the second and fourth in the maiden won by Life is Good have returned and won their maiden specials. Second-place Wipe the Slate (Nyquist) came back on Dec. 26 to win and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 88. On Jan. 3, the fourth-placed Centurian (Empire Maker) made his second start and won by 3 3/4 lengths, going a mile and a sixteenth in 1:44.88. This looks like a key maiden, and more black type is likely to come to its participants.

For his stakes debut on Jan. 2, Life is Good was the 1-to-5 favorite and won the Grade 3 Sham by three-quarters of a length over Medina Spirit in 1:36.63. The second-place finisher had 13 lengths on third-place Parnelli (Quality Road), and Medina Spirit (Protonico) was the peanut butter in a price sandwich among the top three finishers.

Whereas the winner sold for $525,000 at the 2019 Keeneland September sale and Parnelli sold for $500,000 at the same auction, Medina Spirit brought $1,000 at the 2019 OBS winter mixed sale as a short yearling, then resold last year at the OBS June (in July) sale of 2-year-olds in training for $35,000.

As a great breeder once said, “Horses can't read their pedigrees or their press clippings, and it's a good thing.”

Although the “thousand-dollar wonder” made a race of it, Life is Good was strong to the end, and the son of leading sire Into Mischief became the 84th stakes winner for the top Spendthrift Farm stallion.

Life is Good was bred in Kentucky by Gary and Mary West, who also bred and raced Maximum Security (New Year's Day). The Wests' racing manager, Ben Glass, said: “Life is Good was a really nice colt. We liked him a lot, but the consensus at the time was that the Into Mischiefs wouldn't go a mile and a quarter. So Mr. West told me to go ahead and put him in a sale.

“We breed enough foals every year that we have to sell some, and we have to sell some of the nicest ones because people notice if the yearlings don't include some serious prospects. For the nicer horses, we put a proper reserve on them, and if they bring it, they sell. Mr. West told me to put a half-million reserve on the Into Mischief colt,” and he brought $525,000 from China Horse Club and WinStar Farm LLC.

Owned by two of the principals behind Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy), Life is Good went into training with the man who trained the last two Triple Crown winners, Bob Baffert. The bay colt is now unbeaten in two starts and is poised to race along the same path that 2020 Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic winner Authentic (Into Mischief) trod a year ago.

Nor is Life is Good the only Into Mischief colt pointing toward the classics. On the same day and a continent's width away from Santa Anita, the bay Mutasaabeq (Into Mischief) won the Mucho Macho Man Stakes at Gulfstream, covering the mile in 1:35.98. This was the progressive colt's third victory in five starts, and it was his first stakes victory on dirt.

After finishing third in the G1 Hopeful last summer, Mutasaabeq had tried turf and won the G2 Bourbon Stakes at Keeneland, then finished unplaced in the G1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf after an eventful trip.

Trained by Todd Pletcher for Shadwell Stable, Mutasaabeq was bred in Kentucky by Black Ridge Stables LLC. He is out of the Scat Daddy mare Downside Scenario, a half-sister to G3 stakes winner Cool Cowboy (Kodiak Kowboy). Winner of a maiden special, Downside Scenario sold to Black Ridge for $250,000 at the 2018 Keeneland January sale when she was carrying Mutasaabeq.

Expectations are that Mutasaabeq will try the classic trail, and he and Life is Good are two more examples of why Into Mischief is such a popular stallion: his racers are fast, enthusiastic competitors and everybody wants one.

Not surprisingly, the dam of Life is Good is already booked back to Into Mischief for a 2021 mating. Beach Walk is in foal to Candy Ride, carrying a colt, and due in the coming weeks. For breeders, it's simple. Glass said, “We love Into Mischief. We bred three mares to him in 2017, including Beach Walk, and bought a share in him. Then we sold the best one, and if we had to do it again, we'd probably do the same thing.”

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View From the Eighth Pole: Truth Or Consequences

I've been observing the “lads” at Coolmore Stud in Ireland and at their Kentucky farm, Ashford, for more than 30 years. They have revolutionized the bloodstock world, maximized stallion revenue, and elevated customer service and marketing.

Through early identification and acquisition of promising stud prospects, embracing large books for their stallions (including no small number of their own mares), and shuttling them to Australia or South America for dual hemisphere breeding seasons, Coolmore and Ashford can “get out” financially on many of these horses before their first foals hit the racetrack.

In a business where nine out of 10 new stallions will fail to sustain or increase their initial value, it's highly advantageous for a stud farm to break even or show a modest profit before the marketplace has a chance to see whether or not a horse's offspring can run.

Yet the lads aren't perfect. No one is.

I was reminded of that when I saw their recent advertisement for first-year stallion Maximum Security. It was, without a doubt, the most unconventional stallion ad I've ever seen.

Under the banner, “MAXIMUM SECURITY – the facts,” the ad began normally enough, citing races won, achievements, and awards.

Then it gets weird. Bullet point No. 12 in the ad states: “NEVER TESTED POSITIVE for an illegal or prohibited substance during his career despite comprehensive testing at the world's best laboratories.”

That statement is true (though I might disagree that post-race testing for all of his races was done at “the world's best laboratories.”). But let's remember how many times cheating cyclist Lance Armstrong said he'd never failed a drug test:  “Twenty-plus-year career, 500 drug controls worldwide, in and out of competition. Never a failed test. I rest my case,” he said in May 2011, a little more than a year before he was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles because of doping.

But wait, there's more.

In addition to a complimentary quote from Bob Baffert, who trained Maximum Security for the second half of his 4-year-old campaign in 2020, there is this closing argument: “MAXIMUM SECURITY is a bona fine CHAMPION that raced on water, hay, oats & fresh air!”

Everyone knows what this is about.

Less than three months after the announcement that Coolmore had purchased a significant share in the racing and breeding interests of Maximum Security – who was voted an Eclipse Award winner as outstanding 3-year-old male of 2019 – the colt's trainer, Jason Servis was among those rounded up and arrested by the FBI as part of a broad multi-year investigation into doping of racehorses in the United States.

The indictment states that Servis and co-conspirators “concealed the administration of PEDs from federal and state government agencies, racing officials, and the betting public by, among other things, concealing and covertly transporting PEDs between barns where Servis' racehorses were stabled, falsifying veterinary bills to conceal the administration of SGF-1000, and using fake prescriptions.”

Even worse, there were specific references to Maximum Security in the March charging document and the superseding indictment filed Nov. 5.

“Jason Servis, the defendant, was the trainer for a particularly successful racehorse, 'Maximum Security,' that briefly placed first at the Kentucky Derby on May 4, 2019, before racing officials disqualified the horse for interference,” the superseding indictment states.

“Following the Kentucky Derby,” it continues, “Maximum Security continued to compete in high-profile races, including in Oceanport, New Jersey. Servis worked with (veterinarians) Kristian Rhein and Alexander Chan, the defendants, among others, to procure and administer adulterated and misbranded PEDs, including the adulterated and misbranded PED SGF-1000 and invalidly administered Clenbuterol, for the purpose of doping several racehorses under Servis' control, including Maximum Security.”

The FBI intercepted a March 5, 2019, phone call between Servis and co-defendant Jorge Navarro in which Servis is heard recommending SGF-1000 to Navarro, adding, “I've been using it on everything almost.” Navarro allegedly admitted also giving SGF-1000 to some of his horses, then ended the call, saying: “I don't want to talk about this shit on the phone, OK.”

The indictment states that SGF-1000 is a “customized PED purportedly containing 'growth factors,' including fibroblast growth factor and heptocyte growth factor, which are intended to promote tissue repair and increase a racehorse's stamina and endurance beyond its natural capability.”

So it appears, based on the indictment, that Maximum Security was getting a little something more than the “water, hay, oats, and fresh air” claim in the ad.

No one is suggesting original owners Gary and Mary West or the Coolmore partners who bought into the horse had any knowledge of what is documented in the indictment.

The Maximum Security ad also includes an excerpt from a story in the Thoroughbred Daily News stating Servis may have been buying “some fake PEDs” from Chan and Rhein, based on comments from prosecutors at a pre-trial hearing.

The arrest of Servis came just over a week after Maximum Security had won the inaugural running of the $20-million Saudi Cup. The Saudis have yet to pay the purse money, pending the outcome of what they said is their own investigation into Servis. More likely, they're waiting to see what happens in court.

That could take a while. There is another pre-trial conference scheduled on May 14, 2021.

Maximum Security did win two of his four post-Servis starts while trained by Baffert, including the G1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar. He was retired following a fifth-place performance in the G1 Breeders' Cup Classic at Keeneland, finishing behind two Baffert barnmates – winner Authentic and runner-up Improbable – Global Campaign, and Tacitus. He beat race favorite Tiz the Law.

I'm not going to knock Maximum Security, who could turn out to be a great success at stud. As the late Hall of Fame trainer Charlie Whittingham is often quoted as saying, “Never say anything bad about a horse until he's been dead at least 10 years.”

But we know from other sports that suspected cheating has consequences. Barry Bonds, Major League Baseball's all-time leading home run hitter and single-season record holder, has been shut out of the Baseball Hall of Fame. So, too, have Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire, all with Hall of Fame qualifications but accused of using steroids. None failed a drug test.

Servis (and by way of extension Maximum Security) is innocent until proven guilty, but the charges against him and the others named in the case are serious. If Servis is found guilty, no amount of spin is going to chase the dark clouds away from his most accomplished horse.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

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