No getting away from it: even 107 previous runnings, a million bucks and 170 starting points can't dress up the recent misfortunes of the GII Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby as a springboard to the first Saturday in May.
Maybe that's because it falls between stools, in terms of scheduling, the previous cycle of rehearsals having left trainers scope for one more start before the GI Kentucky Derby. Not many around, nowadays, who'd even be thinking about running again with just six weeks to go. Credit to the Fair Grounds team, then, for their initiative in stretching out all three legs of their trial series last year. If the old school liked to give these adolescent horses a deeper racetrack grounding, that was largely because of the extreme test awaiting them against 19 rivals going flat out through 10 furlongs at Churchill. Now that the Louisiana Derby falls only a few strides short of that distance, however, trainers have the chance to draw on a deeper seam while remaining on the lighter race schedule that's now so fashionable.
Following the postponement of the main event last year, of course, this will be the first test of the new bridge over the gap. As such, the opportunity is there to open out a four-cornered Derby–following a nearly mechanical sequence of spectacular auditions by Greatest Honour (Tapit), Essential Quality (Tapit), Life Is Good (Into Mischief) and Concert Tour (Street Sense)–into a pentagon.
The three local protagonists, having filled the podium in both the GIII Lecomte S. and GII Risen Star S., have left each other the door ajar for a breakout performance. True, they have a Californian shipper to deal with this time. And we've seen those wipe out the Oaklawn horses with a 1-2 in the GII Rebel S. last weekend, and also chase home Essential Quality before that.
That is exactly what Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) did at the Breeders' Cup. He was 94-1, but there was no fluke about that performance and I retain plenty of hope for the “Chuck” fairytale–he was the last horse sold by the late Edward A. Cox Jr., remember, pinhooked for $17,000 before his half-brother became Mitole (Eskendereya)–even if his reappearance form has meanwhile come to appear a little porous.
In terms of the hometown horses, there's a nice symmetry: on the one hand, Proxy (Tapit) could give his sire three of the top five chances in his quest for the Derby that would crown his resume; on the other, here's Mandaloun (Into Mischief) bidding to consolidate the emergence of a no-less-remarkable stallion as a Classic influence, following Authentic (Into Mischief) last year and now Life Is Good.
Obviously this evolution, with the improvement of Into Mischief's books, has long been a pretty blatant trend. The real straw in the wind was Audible, out of Gilded Time mare and conceived at $20,000, when a strong-finishing third to Justify (Scat Daddy) in the 2018 Derby. Mandaloun obviously has a lot more to work with, in the seeding of his Juddmonte family.
The question now is whether Into Mischief might even keep building in the manner of Danehill and Mr. Prospector, breed-shaping stallions who wildly diversified what started out as a speed brand. Even as it is, however, there are valuable lessons in what he's doing.
Because if Into Mischief is getting stock to carry their speed, that is not necessarily simply down to classy two-turn mares. The dam of Audible, remember, won a few sprints running for $4,000 or $5,000 at Mountaineer and Finger Lakes. So really, if we recognize Into Mischief as an extremely important horse, we also have to take on board an extremely important message–and that's to view pedigrees in the round, as a composite of diverse, entwined strands.
Where are these horses finding their stamina? Well, just in back-of-an-envelope terms, let's remind ourselves that the first three dams of Into Mischief's sire Harlan's Holiday are by Affirmed, Honest Pleasure and Princequillo. The latter, obviously a welcome linchpin in any pedigree, also surfaces behind Into Mischief's dam, the celebrated Leslie's Lady (Tricky Creek): her granddam is by One For All, whose damsire was Princequillo. (And moreover out of a very gifted mare by a monster European staying influence in Sea-Bird (Fr). And while her own sire never gets enough credit, Tricky Creek's first three dams, similarly, were by His Majesty, Nijinsky and Swaps. (The latter, moreover, enters the equation through none other than the Darby Dan foundation mare Soaring.)
Obviously, there are plenty of people who will persist in telling you that Leslie's Lady has produced Into Mischief, Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy) and Beholder (Henny Hughes) through some occult alchemy with the Storm Cat line. We still await a coherent explanation why we should disregard all the other illustrious names across the pedigree. Happily, the $8.2 million given in 2019 for a yearling filly out of Leslie's Lady by American Pharoah, obviously an entirely different sire-line, confirms that Leslie's Lady–by a sire who ended up standing at $2,500 in New Mexico, and a mare once claimed for $5,000–is getting due credit where it counts.
The way things are going, nobody could be too surprised if Into Mischief were to end up someday siring a Belmont winner. For now, that remains Tapit's preserve, and the pair of them meanwhile are closing on the Derby in a gripping contest of styles and status. The Louisiana Derby, then, is a skirmish within that wider battle, with Proxy borrowing Mandaloun's Risen Star trick by trying blinkers. It's another round in two separate bouts: one between the leading New Orleans sophomores; the other between two of their sires.
However things play out, let's absorb the rebuke of Into Mischief against all simplistic systemization. Pedigrees are not interstate highways. They're complex city grids, and we can only hope to reach our destination by ensuring that all possible routes maintain the quality regardless.
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