Mucho Gusto, the winner of the 2020 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes (Grade 1), has been retired from racing after suffering a soft tissue injury training toward a defense of his title.
Trainer Bob Baffert said the 5-year-old son of Mucho Macho Man came up with the injury Tuesday morning. News of the retirement was first reported by Thoroughbred Daily News.
“He galloped this morning, and afterwards we noticed some heat in the pastern,” said Baffert. “Ultrasound showed a small issue in the ligament in the pastern area. With soft tissue problems like this it takes months of rest and you don't know if they're going to be the same when they come back. The good thing is we caught it early.”
Mucho Gusto retires with six wins in 13 starts for earnings of $3,953,800. After winning on debut at Los Alamitos' Thoroughbred meet, the horse won the Grade 3 Bob Hope Stakes, then finished second to Improbable in the G1 Los Alamitos Cash Call Futurity to finish his juvenile season.
He started his 3-year-old campaign on a winning note in the G3 Robert B. Lewis Stakes, then ran third in the G3 Sunland Park Derby. Mucho Gusto skipped the Triple Crown races, instead going on to win the G3 Lazaro Barrera Stakes and G3 Affirmed Stakes at Santa Anita before shipping east to finish second in the G1 Haskell Invitational Stakes to Maximum Security and third to Code of Honor in the G1 Travers Stakes. His season finished with a victory in the G3 Oklahoma Derby.
Mucho Gusto spent his first two seasons racing for owner Michael Lund Petersen, who purchased him for $625,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale of 2-year-olds in training. Petersen sold the horse privately to Saudi Prince Faisal Bin Khaled following his Oklahoma Derby score.
Mucho Gusto kicked off his 4-year-old campaign with a 4 1/2-length triumph in the Pegasus World Cup, then tested the Saudi Cup, where he finished fourth. After a 10-month layoff, Mucho Gusto made his final career start in the G2 San Antonio Stakes, where he once again finished fourth.
“I gave him all that time off to have him fresh for these races (the Pegasus and Saudi Cup),” said Baffert. “He really likes that track (Gulfstream). He ran huge in the Haskell, but his biggest race was the Pegasus. And I thought for a second he was going to win the Saudi Cup. He's sort of been the barn favorite.”
Bred in Kentucky by Teneri Farm Inc. and Bernardo Alvarez Calderon, Mucho Gusto is out of the winning Giant's Causeway mare Itsagiantcauseway.
Stud plans for Mucho Gusto are still to be determined.
Stablemate Charlatan, winner of the G1 Runhappy Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita on Dec. 26, is also on the Pegasus invitation list, but Baffert is undecided on whether the 4-year-old Speightstown colt would run. “The door is still open for the Pegasus but we haven't figured anything out yet,” he said.
In “Making Claims,” Paulick Report bloodstock editor Joe Nevills shares his opinions on the Thoroughbred industry from the breeding and sales arenas to the racing world and beyond.
It's early January, and you know what that means: Eclipse Award voters have begun sharing their ballots on social media, and no matter who they picked, outrage ensues from the folks who disagree.
I've got an Eclipse vote, and it's made public as a member of the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters bloc of voters, so in the interest of transparency, I'll share here how I filled out my ballot, along with my reasoning for each category.
If you think I'm off-base with any of my votes, just remember these two things: First, the voting is closed, so nothing I say here can swing any undecided voters. Second, back in 2011, one intrepid voter chose Drosselmeyer as champion turf male in a campaign where his lone start on grass was a seventh-place effort. No matter how much we might disagree on who should be placed where, please understand that someone out there will go further off the deep end than any of us could imagine and cancel me out. Eclipse Award voters are an eclectic bunch.
With that out of the way, let's get down to business.
2-Year-Old Male
1. Essential Quality
2. Jackie's Warrior
3. Fire At Will
While I certainly can't fault anyone for giving Jackie's Warrior a mulligan for his fourth-place effort in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, and instead focusing on his brilliant campaign up to that point, two things swung it toward Essential Quality for me.
First, when they faced off head-to-head on the biggest stage of their lives in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Essential Quality got there first. The juvenile dirt races hold a lot of weight for me, especially in a deep field like we had this year. Second, Essential Quality had a bit more depth to his game. Where Jackie's Warrior got to the front early to do his damage, Essential Quality showed he could be a Grade 1 horse battling for the lead or coming from behind, and he did it twice beyond a mile. That professionalism gave him the edge.
2-Year-Old Female
1. Vequist
2. Dayoutoftheoffice
3. Aunt Pearl
Vequist was the only horse in the division with two Grade 1 wins, and if she was going to split the series with Dayoutoftheoffice, I'd rather have the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies in my win column than the Frizette. All due respect to Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Aunt Pearl, but the lack of depth in North America's juvenile turf platoon and its schedule compared to their dirt contemporaries makes it hard to put a turf horse on top on either of the baby divisions.
3-Year-Old Male
1. Authentic
2. Tiz the Law
3. Happy Saver
The first two were slam dunks. Authentic won the Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic, both over Tiz the Law, who would have gotten the nod if he'd have won either one of those races. There is such a wide gap to the third spot that it allowed for some creativity. Happy Saver got the call by virtue of beating older competition in the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup.
Pretty simple here. If a filly wins a Triple Crown race, it's going to take a mountain of evidence against her to knock her off the perch. Fortunately, Swiss Skydiver had a deep resume to justify the spot beyond her centerpiece victory, with four other graded stakes triumphs, including the G1 Alabama Stakes. Shedaresthedevil, who bested Swiss Skydiver in the Kentucky Oaks and never ran a bad one in 2020, was a clear second, completing an outstanding exacta for new Lane's End resident Daredevil.
Older Dirt Male
1. Improbable
2. Vekoma
3. Global Campaign
I'll be the first to admit that after watching Improbable lose as the favorite again and again as a 3-year-old, I never thought he'd get it together enough to become more than the occasional fluke Grade 1 winner. A year later, here I am eating my words after he became one of the few consistent pillars of an older male division that saw a lot of its potential stars struggle with injury and consistency. Improbable crisscrossed the map and beat everyone else in the division he needed to beat.
I could have shaken the bottle, pulled out a lot of other names to fill out the bottom of the ticket and felt the same about it, but consistent, strong efforts at the highest levels got Vekoma and Global Campaign there for me. In a year where practically every serious contender either got hurt or got exposed when the chips were really down, showing up to work with your lunchpail was enough.
In terms of margin of victory, Monomoy Girl might be the biggest runaway winner of this year's divisions. She went unbeaten in four starts this year, including her pièce de résistance in the Breeders' Cup Distaff.
Serengeti Empress was probably the best horse with the worst luck this year, just missing a couple of graded stakes wins after running with a ton of heart. Even with the near-misses, she was incredibly versatile, winning graded stakes at both the sprint and route distances. Valiance got good at the right time, and proved she belonged with a win in the G1 Spinster Stakes and a second to Monomoy Girl in the Distaff.
I struggled with what to do with Midnight Bisou. She ran huge in the Saudi Cup (and she might end up being named the winner someday if the right people decide there's enough evidence to take Maximum Security down), she looked like the Midnight Bisou we all know and love in her G2 Fleur de Lis romp, and she was unlucky to get nipped in the G1 Personal Ensign. What kept her off the ticket for me was the incomplete feeling I had when I looked at her record. She only raced three times – twice on U.S. soil – she only won once (as of the time this was published), and she didn't win a North American Grade 1. When I crossed out her name from the running lines and separated the campaign from the brand recognition behind the horse that ran it, the bid lost a lot of its luster.
Not a great year for this division in terms of true standouts. Like the Older Dirt Male division, there were a lot of struggles here with form and health that made this division tough to sort out. When that happens, the Breeders' Cup gains a lot more weight, almost by default. Whitmore ran the race of his life to win the Breeders' Cup Sprint, and while his campaign had its fair share of misfires, he did enough with his supporting efforts to put him on top.
Vekoma and Volatile were both lightly raced in 2020, and I don't love that, but they both went undefeated and won their Grade 1 races with gusto. No one else, save for maybe C Z Rocket, had a case that could stack up to that.
Female Sprinter
1. Serengeti Empress
2. Bell's the One
3. Glass Slippers
First, let's address the elephant in the room: Where's Gamine?
My policy for Eclipse voting is if the glacially-paced gears of horse racing's justice system are fast enough to pop a horse for a positive drug test and disqualify them from a race, they're off my ticket regardless of what they do for the rest of their campaign. When Gamine was taken down from her Oaklawn Park optional claimer earlier this year due to a lidocaine positive, she ceased being eligible for year-end honors in my eyes.
I didn't vote for La Verdad in 2015 when she was a contender in this division after she got taken down from the G2 Honorable Miss Stakes for a clenbuterol positive. She ended up winning the Eclipse anyway by eight votes over Wavell Avenue. If I were to venture a guess, Gamine will take this trophy home by a much wider margin, regardless of what I think, but I won't be part of it.
So, that leaves us with a closely matched race between Serengeti Empress and Bell's the One. Bell's the One bested Serengeti Empress by a nose in the G1 Derby City Distaff, while Serengeti Empress nosed out her foe for second in the Breeders' Cup Sprint. If we're pretending Gamine doesn't exist, that's a draw in my eyes. Serengeti Empress had an additional Grade 1 sprint win in the Ballerina, while Bell's the One only had a Grade 3 win to counter, putting the decision to rest.
Filling out the award winners in this division is often a bleak affair, given how much time North America's turf males spend beating each other up, then losing to fillies and Europeans when the lights are the brightest, but this might be the least convincing group of contenders I've seen in any division since I've had a vote.
Let's get this over with. I don't tend to put European-based horses on top unless their case is so convincing that I have no other choice, and that didn't happen this year. Channel Maker was the only horse in the division with two Grade 1 wins, Zulu Alpha won a good Grade 1 in the Pegasus World Cup Turf and never threw a clunker, and Instilled Regard's spot could have gone to a lot of different horses, but I liked his big wins more than the other contenders. Next.
I've seen a lot of votes go for Tarnawa, and I wouldn't be mad if she won it, given the strength of her globetrotting campaign and her impressive win against males in the Breeders' Cup Turf. However, as I laid out, I prefer to give it to a domestic horse if at all possible, and Rushing Fall came a hard-trying neck in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf away from a perfect campaign. The only thing missing from Rushing Fall's resume is an Eclipse Award, and I think she gets it here.
I've had people say I should have my Eclipse vote taken away for abstaining from the steeplechase category every year. They don't seem to realize I abstain out of respect. Nothing in my job requires me to take even a passive interest in the steeplechase races. I know none of the players, the races are often held at venues I'm not familiar with in terms of geography or esteem, and I'm not aware of the unwritten class system that can separate one Grade 1 race from another (like how winning the Kentucky Derby means more than winning the Malibu Stakes). It's an entirely different culture.
If a group of basketball writers were brought in to decide the Eclipse Awards, people would erupt, and rightfully so. It would be disrespectful to the hard work done by an entire industry to have someone outside the circle decide who among them was the best. That's why I leave the steeplechase division to the people who know what they're doing, and don't let my uninformed vote interfere with that. Someone will get a trophy whether I vote or not.
Owner
1. Godolphin
2. Klaravich Stables
3. Gary Barber
Unless a partnership is practically synonymous with each other (like Klaravich Stables and William Lawrence were for a long time), I tend to see this award as one for individuals over groups. Barring outstanding circumstances like a Triple Crown winner, I look for solid high-level success in an Outstanding Owner candidate, with enough depth to fill out the ranks. Godolphin got its Grade 1 bona fides with probable champion Essential Quality and Fair Maiden, while finishing among the nation's leaders by wins, graded wins, and earnings. I could have put Klaravich Stables or Gary Barber in the top spot and slept just as well at night, but the blue team just stood out a little more for me this year.
Breeder
1. WinStar Farm
2. Godolphin
3. Peter E. Blum Thoroughbreds
My criteria is a little more fluid in this category than others. I like to reward a small breeder if they can pull multiple major stars out of a small broodmare band, but short of that, I've got to lean on the numbers and the big wins. WinStar Farm was responsible for the top two in my champion 3-year-old female voting – Swiss Skydiver and Shedaresthedevil – who accounted for the Preakness Stakes and Kentucky Oaks respectively. None of the other major players could match that duo, and that's before we add Grade 1 winners Global Campaign and Paris Lights to the fold.
Jockey
1. Irad Ortiz Jr.
2. Joel Rosario
3. John Velazquez
Irad Ortiz hit the big double of winning some of the sport's biggest races in 2020 while also showing up to work every day to compile impressive numbers. He netted two Breeders' Cup races and the Pegasus World Cup, while also comfortably leading the nation by both wins and earnings while racing on North America's top circuits. This decision was tougher than it sounds, but if the object of the game is to win races and make money, Irad did it the best.
It was a tight race between the top two. Crispin finished second in the jockey standings at the long Delaware Park meet, and third during one of Laurel Park's meets, while also picking up a win in the First State Dash Stakes at Delaware Park. Correa won the riding title at Thistledown's long meet and is currently holding strong in the standings at Mahoning Valley Race Course. As much as I love the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic circuit is deeper water, and the stakes win helped put Crispin on top.
Unrelated, since it was in an Arabian race and doesn't count in the Eclipse voting, but Crispin was also responsible for one of the best rides I've seen all year, both in the skill of the thing and the caliber of the horses he beat to do it. Remember what I said about different cultures in horse racing? Trust me when I tell you how big of an effort this was in the scope of Arabian racing.
Trainer
1. Brad Cox
2. Chad Brown
3. Steve Asmussen
Brad Cox won four Breeders' Cup races, including two of the biggest prizes: the Distaff and the Juvenile. He also took home the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks, La Troienne, and Breeders' Futurity, and he was near the top of the list in just about any meaningful category out there. Chad Brown had a ton of Grade 1 success, but a general lack of variety beyond turf races in those wins and a quiet Breeders' Cup put him in the place position. Steve Asmussen's giant barn put up its usual bulk numbers, and he had several Grade 1 trophies to fill it out at the top.
Horse of the Year
1. Authentic
2. Improbable
3. Monomoy Girl
If Authentic won the Breeders' Cup Classic, he was going to be Horse of the Year. If Improbable had won the Classic instead of running second to Authentic, he would have been Horse of the Year. If they both flopped and an upset winner took it, it would be hard to put a horse with just four starts on top, but Monomoy Girl would have certainly been a big one in that discussion.
As it stands, Authentic got hot at the right time when the Kentucky Derby was still going to be in May, he stayed hot over the summer when the Derby moved to September, and he blossomed into a star when it mattered most late in his campaign. Looking at the whole of the season for anyone with a serious bid at the title, nobody else made sense in the top spot.
As we moved into the first weekend of 2021 (anyone sorry to leave 2020 behind?), there were three races that can be looked upon as early-season preps for the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby that is scheduled to be run on May 1.
Only one of the three preps – Saturday's Grade 3 Sham Stakes at Santa Anita – was graded, and two of the races – the Sham and the Jerome at Aqueduct – received a total of 17 qualifying points for the Derby on a 10-4-2-1 basis for the top four finishers.
The third contest, the Mucho Macho Man Stakes at Gulfstream Park, was neither graded nor an official points race, but it is the first leg of the South Florida track's road to the G1 Florida Derby, which has become the major East Coast prep for the Kentucky Derby.
Here is my first report card on the major Triple Crown prep races of 2021. Grades are entirely subjective and based on my personal “eyeball test,” Beyer Speed Figures, historical significance of the race, and perceived quality of the fields. Please keep this caveat in mind: I am not particularly easy on my “grading curve” and am not easily impressed.
Jan. 1: Jerome Stakes, one mile, Aqueduct
Capo Kane is a California-bred colt by Street Sense who handily defeated a pair of New York-bred stakes winners and two other maiden winners in a race that has had no historical impact on the Kentucky Derby since moving to early January at Aqueduct in 2011. Trained by Parx-based Harold Wyner, Capo Kane eased to the front shortly after the start under Dylan Davis, went quarter miles in :23.53, :24.30, and :24.79 for the first six furlongs in the one-turn mile before running his final quarter mile in :25.40 to win by 6 1/4 lengths. He was coming off a similar front-running score at Parx on Nov. 25 when he beat maidens by 4 1/2 lengths, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 73. He was given a Beyer of 84 in the Jerome.
Visually, Capo Kane looked OK, racing comfortably on the lead, but then drifted out in the stretch, probably more a matter of losing his focus more than anything else. He was the fourth betting choice in a five-horse field, with 7-5 favorite Swill chucking it in after prompting the early pace. Weak field in a historically weak race.
Grade: C-
Jan. 2: Mucho Macho Man Stakes, one mile, Gulfstream Park
Mutasaabeq was made the 11-10 favorite in this one-turn mile stakes at Gulfstream Park in his return to the dirt after two turf races, including an impressive last-to-first victory in the G2 Bourbon Stakes at Keeneland. He then finished 10th in the G1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf.
Trained by Todd Pletcher, the Into Mischief colt was purchased by Shadwell as a weanling for $425,000 at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale and won his debut on dirt at Saratoga Aug. 8 as a well-intentioned 4-5 favorite. Next out he was third of seven runners in the G1 Hopeful on dirt, then shifted to turf for his next two starts.
Nine horses broke from the gate in the Mucho Macho Man, including two other stakes winners: Pickin' Time, winner of the G3 Nashua Nov. 8 at Aqueduct; and Big Thorn, who won a Florida-bred event at Gulfstream Nov. 22.
Unlike the Bourbon Stakes, where Mutasaabeq displayed a brilliant turn of foot from the three-eighths pole to the furlong marker to gain the advantage and draw off by 2 1/4 lengths, he was more of a grinder in the Mucho Macho Man.
Under Luis Saez, Mutasaabeq was kept in the clear to the outside of pacesetter Awesome Gerry in the long run down the backstretch. He engaged the leader on the turn for home under aggressive handling from Luis Saez and was kept to his task down the stretch to win off by 1 1/2 lengths. Papetu, a 20-1 outsider who hadn't raced since running fifth in the aforementioned Hopeful, kept Mutasaabeq honest down the lane, ultimately finishing 1 1/21 lengths back.
Final time was 1:35.98, with quarter-mile fractions of :23.70, :22.45, :23.81 and :26.02. The Beyer Speed Figure team gave Mutasaabeq an 87 for the effort, three points above his maiden-breaking effort at Saratoga last August.
Grade: C
Jan. 2: Sham Stakes, one mile, Santa Anita
There was a lot of hype here. The Sham Stakes has had some very good winners in the past (Colonel John, Tapizar, Goldencents, McKinzie), but Authentic put the race on the map in 2020 when he won by 7 3/4 lengths despite nearly going over the rail while goofing off down the stretch. The Into Mischief colt went on to win the G2 San Felipe, G1 Haskell, G1 Kentucky Derby, and G1 Breeders' Cup Classic for trainer Bob Baffert and is the Horse of the Year favorite.
Authentic earned a 90 Beyer Speed Figure in the 2020 Sham off a maiden win sprinting at Del Mar.
Life Is Good, like Authentic a son of Spendthrift Farm's leading stallion Into Mischief, earned a 91 Beyer Speed Figure while breaking his maiden for Baffert in a Del Mar sprint on Nov. 22, drawing off by 9 1/2 lengths. Bred by Mary and Gary West Stable, Inc., he was purchased for $525,000 as a yearling at the Keeneland September Sale.
It's not surprising for Baffert to have the favorite in a graded stakes for horses being pointed toward the Kentucky Derby, but the debut of Life Is Good had the aura of a horse that was something special. He did not disappoint that day.
In the days leading up to the Swaps, Baffert downplayed Life Is Good's superiority, saying you never know if a horse can stretch out from sprint distances to two turns until they try it. Nevertheless, he went off the 1-5 favorite in a five-horse field that didn't include a single stakes winner. Second choice was Parnelli, a John Shirreffs-trained colt who needed four starts to break his maiden, earning a 79 Beyer for his win. Third choice was a second Baffert runner, Medina Spirit, a Florida-bred son of Protonico who sold for $1,000 as a yearling at the OBS winter sale and $35,000 at the OBS July Sale as a 2-year-old. He'd broken his maiden at Los Alamitos on Dec. 11 by three lengths, getting a 76 Beyer.
Under Mike Smith, Life Is Good broke from the outside No. 5 post and was in front into the first turn while four wide. Never challenged through the first six furlongs, he set fractions of :23.56, :23.11 and :23.99 while leading by three to four lengths, according to the Equibase chart.
With a furlong left and a four-length advantage, Life Is Good looked home free. But Abel Cedillo aboard Medina Spirit, who chased from second throughout, cut into that margin — gradually at first and then more dramatically in the final yards. As Medina Spirit gained on Life Is Good in the final sixteenth of a mile, Smith went to work on his mount (much as he did when he thought Authentic was home free in the Haskell, leading by 2 1/2 lengths at furlong pole and then barely holding on against Ny Traffic to win by a nose).
Life Is Good drifted out several paths late, possibly intimidating Medina Spirit and Cedillo, who wasn't able to give the most aggressive ride in the final yards. The winning margin was three-quarters of a length and the final quarter mile was run in :25.97. This was not the performance I was expecting to see.
The Beyer team gave Life Is Good a 101 Speed Figure, by far the fastest of the three weekend Derby preps.
In a performance befitting her short odds, Bob Baffert's Kalypso showed good early speed and took command turning for home en route to a facile 1 ¾-length victory in Sunday's Grade 2, $200,000 Santa Ynez Stakes at Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif. Ridden for the first time by Joel Rosario, Kalypso got seven furlongs in 1:23.42 and provided Baffert with his record sixth win in the Santa Ynez, an early prep for both the Grade 2 Santa Anita Oaks and the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks.
Breaking from the far outside in a field of six sophomore fillies, Kalypso – from the first crop by Spendthrift Farm stallion Brody's Cause – enjoyed an early neck advantage on longshot Brilliant Cut, who broke from the rail. Heading up the backside, these two were head and head with Kalypso obviously well within herself. Turning for home, Kalypso asserted her dominance and she went on to a most impressive win as much the best.
“She broke good and put me right into the race, in a good position,” said Rosario, who notched his third stakes win through five days of racing. “I'm just happy to be on her. She was the best horse and she'll be better going longer distances.”
Most recently a close second going a mile and one sixteenth in the G1 Starlet at Los Alamitos Dec. 5, Kalypso was off as the 4-5 favorite and paid $3.80, $2.80 and $2.20.
“She has natural speed and she's a really fast filly,” said Baffert, who scratched morning line favorite Varda earlier but still ran three fillies. “She had the lead for a long time in the (Starlet), backing up it's a big difference to go seven eighths. The way she broke today, she was in a good spot and she was really training well coming into this race…
“I would try her long again, as they get older, they are maturing. You can slow her down a little bit, like today she was pretty relaxed. She wasn't too rank where she went real fast but we'll just see how (she) comes out of it.”
Owned by David A. Bernsen, LLC, Rockingham Ranch and Chad Littlefield, Kalyspo picks up 10 qualifying points to the Kentucky Oaks on April 30 and with her first graded stakes win, is now 5-2-2-1. With the winner's share of $120,000, she increased her earnings to $245,600.
Ridden by Mike Smith, Frosteria rallied four-wide from well off the pace to outrun Brilliant Cut by 1 ½ lengths. The second choice at 7-2, Frosteria, a Godolphin homebred also trained by Baffert, paid $3.60 and $2.80.
Off at 30-1 with Ricky Gonzalez, the Doug O'Neill-trained Brilliant Cut finished 3 ½ lengths clear of Queengol and paid $5.80 to show.
Runner-up Frosteria picked up four Kentucky Oaks qualifying points, while Brilliant Cut got two and Queengol, one.
Baffert, who won last year's Santa Ynez with Bast, entered today's proceedings tied with D. Wayne Lukas with five lifetime wins in the race, which was run for the 70th time today.
Fractions on the race were 22.53, 45.13 and 1:10.18.
Live racing returns with first post time for a nine-race card on Friday at 12:30 p.m. All of Santa Anita's races are available free of charge at santaanita.com/live and fans can watch and wager via 1st.com/Bet.
