Tom's d'Etat was one of three horses that stepped off the van at the WinStar Farm stallion complex on Sunday morning, less than 24 hours after each ran in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Keeneland just a few miles away.
For his two fellow passengers, a future at WinStar Farm was practically guaranteed as soon as they jumped through the proper hoops to warrant a stud career. Improbable and Global Campaign, second and third respectively in the Classic, both had run under the WinStar colors, so standing at the farm was the next logical step. For Tom's d'Etat, a future at WinStar marks an incredible reversal of fortune from one that could have seen him begin his stud career in relative obscurity.
Looking back at his full body of work, a major Kentucky farm seems like a logical destination for Tom's d'Etat. An earner of more than $1.7 million, he established himself as one of the top runners of the older male division in 2020, and he carried over the momentum from a win in the Grade 1 Clark Stakes last year. Being what will likely be the final top-level son by his late sire Smart Strike to enter stud certainly doesn't hurt, either, joining the likes of Curlin, English Channel, Lookin At Lucky, and Dominus among Kentucky's stallion ranks.
In the summer of 2017, Tom's d'Etat was none of those things, besides a son of Smart Strike. He was a dependable 4-year-old allowance-level runner for the Benson family's G M B Racing and trainer Al Stall, Jr., but after missing his juvenile season due to injury and needing a few tries to break his maiden in the fall of his 3-year-old campaign, a future as a serious Kentucky stallion prospect seemed like a pipe dream.
Tom's d'Etat was trending in the right direction during that year's Saratoga meet, and he was being pointed toward the G1 Woodward Stakes after winning an optional claiming race by nine lengths.
That optional claimer would be the final race of Tom's d'Etat's 2017 campaign. An emerging cannon bone fracture derailed a planned graded stakes debut in the G1 Woodward Stakes, and he went dormant for 15 months after having two screws put in his right front leg.
When his future as an on-track competitor was still murky, Stall and his team wanted to make sure their well-blooded loyal soldier had a future lined up for him after the races.
“There was a time when I was going to give him to the starter at Churchill and Keeneland, Scott Jordan, who has a farm in Indiana [Breakway Farm in Dillsboro, Ind.] – give him to him – and he said, 'I'll hustle up some mares. We don't have any Smart Strike blood in Indiana,'” Stall said. “Then, for whatever reason, everything started staying together on him, and he finally got to prove the kind of talent we always thought he was.”
He'd have been a solid addition to the Breakway Farm roster, but far from its most proven member on the racetrack. In 2020, Grade 1 winners Calculator and Turbo Compressor, Grade 3 winner Charming Kitten, and Grade 1-placed Greeley's Conquest resided in their stud barn.
Tara Mathias, manager of Breakway Farm and Jordan's daughter, said the arrangement never got further than conversations as a contingency plan if Tom's d'Etat couldn't make it back from his injury, and ink was never put to paper over it. There were no hard feelings when the horse went on to achieve what he did and move higher up ladder as a stallion prospect, though having a horse with Grade 1 talent in him slip away from the farm's grasp was a downer.
“Al's exercise rider at the time said he was a really nice horse, and was probably going to retire, and he'd be a good fit in Indiana,” Mathias said, “Then, he just kept winning and winning, and got better and better. They just didn't know how he was going to come back from it, and he didn't have enough under his belt to make him a huge hit in Kentucky. He'd be big in our small pond.”
Normally, a layoff of that duration is enough to retire an older horse, but Tom's d'Etat rewarded the patience of his connections by retaining his up-and-coming form when he returned. Horse racing is a sport full of diverging paths, and the decision to keep Tom's d'Etat in training ultimately created a seven-figure swing in on-track earnings, with the added ripple effects tied to all the graded black type that would have gone to someone else, the money spent and earned in a major Kentucky stud deal, and all the mares he will see in 2021 and beyond.
Tom's d'Etat raced twice at five, culminating in his first stakes triumph in the Tenacious Stakes at the Fair Grounds. He was overmatched in his first try against graded stakes competition in the G1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes, but he came back after a spring freshening to finish second in the G2 Alysheba Stakes and third in the G2 Stephen Foster Stakes.
From that point on, Tom's d'Etat was in the mix against the best in his division – often as the oldest horse in the field. He finished his 6-year-old campaign with victories in the G2 Fayette Stakes and G1 Clark Stakes, then he racked up wins this year in the Oaklawn Mile Stakes and G2 Stephen Foster Stakes this year at age seven.
In July, following his 4 1/4-length Stephen Foster victory, WinStar Farm revealed it had secured Tom's d'Etat's breeding rights when he retired to stud. From a horse that was perhaps one relapsed injury away from going to stud as a giveaway, Tom's d'Etat had become a blue-chip prospect recruited by one of Kentucky's top stallion operations.
Tom's d'Etat came up empty in his swan song, finishing out of the money in the Breeders' Cup Classic, but Stall said there was never a doubt that he belonged in the race, and amongst the best in his division.
“I'm very, very biased, but I thought he was the best looking horse in the field in the Classic,” he said. “He was moving really well. I just think those two races this summer back-to-back, the Foster and the Whitney, maybe were just enough for him at this age. That would just be my guess, because he was giving us every indication he was going fine, but he's a smart old boy, and maybe that was one of the contributing factors.”
So now, three years after his future looked to be in Indiana, Tom's d'Etat could realistically fit nearly half the Hoosier State's broodmare population into his projected debut book at stud. He'll stand for $17,500 in his debut season, and in addition to his graded-level success, WinStar Farm's Elliott Walden was quick to note that he's got a stallion's family under him.
“Being by Smart Strike, from the family of Candy Ride, that's two proven stallions,” Walden said. “He moves with a very lengthy stride, full of quality. He has the length of a Candy Ride, Smart Strike kind of look to him; similar to Lookin At Lucky, just a long, two-turn type horse.”
Plenty of words have been written at this point about the “win now” mentality of the commercial stallion market, and a prospect that didn't race at two and didn't win until the fall of his 3-year-old season might give some pause about what kind of precociousness Tom's d'Etat may or may not pass on to his foals.
Stall said the horse's slow start was more about bad luck and bad timing than him not being ready for the races.
“He would have have probably broken his maiden in his second start during the Keeneland fall meet, like Blame did as a 2-year-old,” Stall said, projecting his talent had he stayed healthy. “I just breezed him one day at Churchill Downs, and everything was fine with him, then something just flaked off and cost us a year. It wasn't like he was some big horse that didn't know what he was doing. A few things just started adding up. It wouldn't surprise me if he got a typier, smaller horse that would be a decent fall 2-year-old. That's the fun of it. It takes a bit of patience, but that's okay.”
Sunday's transition from the racetrack to the stud barn was a familiar one for Stall, who sent Blame on a van from Churchill Downs to Claiborne Farm ten years earlier after the colt shocked the world to best Zenyatta and win the Breeders' Cup Classic.
In the time between, Stall said he has been fascinated seeing what types of mares worked and didn't work when matched with Blame. Now, he's got another stallion to watch and theorize on matings, and based on the page under Tom's d'Etat and the multi-surface success of Smart Strike, he has at least one outside-the-box idea before the breeding season begins.
“Theoretically, there should be some grass there, even though we tried him on grass, and he did literally everything but stop and graze the day we ran him on it,” he said. “Blame's a good grass sire and he never set foot on the grass.”
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