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Stakes Winner Honest Mischief Retired To Stud At Sequel Stallions

Stakes winning sprinter, Honest Mischief (Into Mischief – Honest Lady by Seattle Slew), has been retired to Sequel Stallions New York, where he will stand for a fee of $6,500 LFSN.

Bred and raced by leading global powerhouse, Juddmonte Farm, Honest Mischief broke his maiden in his second start by eight lengths at Keeneland becoming a TDN Rising Star and earning an outstanding 2 Ragozin Number. He became a stakes winner winning the Force The Pass City of Laurel Stakes and was second to the brilliantly fast Volatile in the Aristides Stakes at Churchill Downs. Honest Mischief became graded stakes-placed in the Grade 2 Amsterdam Stakes at Saratoga. He bested G1 stakes winners Mind Control and Complexity in the G1 Woody Stephens Stakes at Belmont. Honest Mischief retires with four wins, three seconds, and one third in nine career starts with earnings of $287,464.

“Honest Mischief identified himself very early as one of the best dirt prospects of his crop in our barn.” Said Chad Brown, Trainer. “He proved to be very fast, durable, and consistent in both the mornings and afternoons. He has all the qualities my really good Into Mischief's have. I have never had a horse run a 2 Ragozin Number so early in his 3-year-old year. He was very, very fast!”

Honest Mischief hails from one of the most significant families in the stud book today. His G1 stakes winning dam, Honest Lady, is a half-sister to 4 Graded Stakes winners including G1 Classic winner, Empire Maker, as well as sires, Chester House and Decarchy. Honest Lady established herself as one of the most important racehorses of her generation winning the G1 Santa Monica Handicap and running 2nd against colts in the Breeders' Cup Sprint. Honest Mischief is also the grandson of Broodmare Of The Year, Leslie's Lady, and Toussaud.

“Honest Mischief's pedigree epitomizes the simplistic Juddmonte approach of matching the world's best dirt stallion with Prince Khalid's best dirt family.” Said Garrett O'Rourke, Manager of Juddmonte Farm. “Honest Lady was a nose away from being a Breeders Cup Sprint G1 champion in the fastest ever Breeder's Cup Sprint. She also placed in a Met Mile G1 against colts, and was the most beautiful little mare with a regal personality. Then to be by Seattle Slew out of broodmare of the year, Toussaud, and dam of G1 winner, First Defense, illustrates the peerless quality of this pedigree. Honest Mischief was pegged as a real talent by our exercise riders from the very beginning. He had raw speed, he was sound, and he had desire. He placed behind stars like Shancelot and Volatile at the top of their games and when he won, he won like a G1 horse. Honest Mischief has such a genetic concentration of classic talent, on top and bottom of his pedigree, that expectation of his success at stud is just a given.”

“Into Mischief is the most dominant sire of our times, rocketing to stardom from the very ordinary mares originating from his first books. To stand at stud the son of such an incredible sire as well as the magnificent female family Honest Mischief exhibits is beyond exciting,” said Becky Thomas of Sequel New York. “I am a super fan of Into Mischief and am honored to bring Honest Mischief to New York with the support and participation of Juddmonte Farm.”

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Tom’s Ready Arrives At Old Friends Retirement Center

Old Friends, the Thoroughbred Retirement Center in Georgetown, KY, is proud to welcome multiple graded stakes winner Tom's Ready. The 7-year-old son of More Than Ready — Goodbye Stranger, by Broad Brush stood initially at Spendthrift Farm and then at Red River Farms in Louisiana.

Bred in Pennsylvania and campaigned by the late Tom Benson's GMB Racing and trainer Dallas Stewart, Tom's Ready broke his maiden in his third start as a 2-year-old at Churchill Downs, and followed that win with a close 2nd in the Street Sense Stakes. A second-place finish to Gun Runner in the Louisiana Derby (G2), qualified Tom's Ready for the Kentucky Derby, where he finished 12th behind winner Nyquist. His career apex came the following year when he captured the 2016 $500,000 Woody Stephens Stakes (G2) at Belmont Park. He went on to defeat older horses, including champion sprinter Runhappy, in the Ack Ack Stakes (G3), again at Churchill. He ended the season with a fifth-place finish in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. At 4, he captured the Leemat Stakes at Presque Isle Downs and the Bold Ruler Handicap (G3) at Belmont Park. Tom's Ready retires with earnings of $1,036,267.

“I truly respect and appreciate the great work of the staff at Old Friends as we have come to know Michael Blowen and his great work,” said GMB Racing's Gayle Benson. “We have had St. Aloysius there for a number of years, and it gives us great pleasure to have our wonderful Tom's Ready retire to Old Friends. He was our first purchase, he is a Grade II winner, and he raced in the Kentucky Derby and the Breeder's Cup, so we are very proud of him and he is deserving of the great care that Old Friends will provide.”

“We're honored to add Tom's Ready to our other old friends,” said Old Friends founder and President Michael Blowen. “I'm certain that his many fans will be very excited to see him when we, hopefully, open for tours post-virus. Meanwhile, he already has his head in the carrot bucket.”

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One Minute With Cathy: Top Eventer Makes Bite-Sized Videos With Tips And Tricks Around The Barn

Many people have embarked upon quarantine projects as the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched on. For top eventer Cathy Wieschhoff, that project has been sharing her knowledge from decades of horsemanship. Wieschhoff has begun a web series titled 'One Minute With Cathy' which provide viewers with her tips, tricks, and perspective on common mistakes.

Wieschhoff has competed at the four-star level of eventing at both Kentucky and Badminton, is an ICP certified Level IV instructor and holds an r course design license. She owns a boarding and training facility in Lexington, Ky.

In this series of videos, Wieschhoff explains why she teaches her horses to lower their heads on command, why she mounts up slowly, and the safest way to shorten irons.

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This Year’s Sporting Art Auction Offers Racing Legends, Beautiful Landscapes, And A Bit Of Humor

In a year when nothing is quite normal, it's nice to have a few things you can count on. For the Keeneland auction pavilion, the switch from horses to art is as reliable as the changing of the seasons. For the eighth year, broodmares and weanlings made their annual November parade through the auction ring while paintings and sculpture decorated the pavilion's halls, awaiting their turn to change hands in the Sporting Art Auction.

While in previous years, the Sporting Art Auction sees paintings and sculpture auctioned from the iconic Keeneland ring, this year's sale will be conducted virtually. Those who were at Keeneland for the November Sale may also have noticed fewer works of art lighting their passage between the café and the back walking ring, as organizer Cross Gate Gallery sought to display this year's catalogue in smaller groups to discourage crowding from viewers.

Much like the sale that precedes it, the catalogue for the Sporting Art Auction varies a bit year by year.

“We want everyone to be able to find something that we like, so we do have 19^th Century British, and we extend all the way up,” said Bill Evans Meng, gallery director for Cross Gate Gallery in Lexington, Ky. “There are a lot of contemporary painters. I'm 37 and everyone my age is buying the new things. [The catalog] is maybe is a little more contemporary this year but sometimes you have to go with what you can find.”

Meng said he aims to have a healthy mix of time periods, styles, and subjects each year. While most feature horses either in racing or foxhunting contexts, there are often a few pastoral scenes as well as a few of hunting dogs, farm creatures, or fowl.

A few works were commissioned to depict specific horses. A trio of portraits from well-known equine painter Richard Stone Reeves depict Law Society, Coup De Feu and Mr. Right, while a signed collection of 12 prints from Franklin B. Voss (no relation to the author) is a fond look back at the top runners of the 1920s and 1930s, including Man o' War, Gallant Fox, Seabiscuit, and Discovery.

For Meng, works designed to immortalize a particular subject sometimes come along with the most interesting stories.

“The ones that are specific, they have a story and people like that,” said Meng. “I feel like all three of the Reeves this year, they had real connections to the connections. The one of the Coup de Feu was a father and son story – the father owned it and got his son started racing. Law Society was a big horse for Vincent O'Brien and of course shows his incredible training facility. The third Reeves, Mr. Right, came from the trainer and I got to talk to him a lot and he really liked the horse. When you do these specific ones, there's always a story and I think people connect to that.

“Of course a lot of our clients are horsemen and they're into bloodlines. They might know this was their horse's great-great-grandsire and that means something to them.”

In a somewhat unusual twist, this year's auction also features a human portrait from German/American artist Nicola Marschall of Daniel Swigert. Swigert and his Elmendorf Farm are two of the oldest names in the Kentucky Thoroughbred business, tracing back from the 1870s.

(We wrote about Elmendorf and Swigert in our Kentucky Farm Time Capsule series. Read that profile piece here.)

“When he was young he tried to build up what became Buffalo Trace Distillery and then he went on to become a great horsemen,” he said. “I knew about him, but I didn't know enough about him to appreciate it when I saw the painting the first time [10 or 12 years ago.]”

Lot 120, Early Morning Exercise, Green Lane as painted by Peter Howell

Other pieces are looser or more interpretative, allowing an owner or fan to see their own favorite horse in the lights and shadows. Painter Peter Howell's depictions of morning training at Keeneland and Newmarket are particularly good examples of this.

Then there are pieces likely to garner attention on name recognition alone. The catalog contains a number of sketches from the well-known Sir Alfred Munnings, as well as brightly-colored scenes from popular Henry Lawrence Faulkner and a landscape from Andrew Wyeth.

(Read more about Sir Alfred Munnings in this 2017 feature.)

There are also pieces with a sense of humor. Andrew Pater's 'The Empty Bowl' features a hound next to his empty dish wearing the dry, humorless expression all pet owners have experienced when they've dared to come home late. 'Antagonizing the Barn Cat' from George Armfield shows a faceoff between an irritated tabby and a trio of terriers poised to hop and play. Then there's Philip Eustace Stretton's 'Study of A Ginger Cat' displaying an enormous orange feline upon a regal crimson cushion.

“I've chuckled myself walking by it,” said Meng. “We don't get a lot of cat paintings, but we do have some clients that sort of got on a cat kick, so there you go. He's sort of looking majestic.

“They kind of would paint these animal genre scenes like that, where you'd see them acting out. Animals are going to be animals. I think they're something people can relate to, something lighthearted. Those do well, because people like to laugh.”

Lot 73, Study Of A Ginger Cat, 1908 by Philip Eustace Stretton

Art collectors, like breeders with an impressive base of broodmares, do not necessarily have a time clock on their investments. Some pieces may come to auction when an owner disperses their collection or as part of an estate sale. Other owners may look at the market and their particular piece's merits and try to read the tea leaves, deciding if this is the time to benefit from an increase in value. Meng tells people that their decision should ultimately come down to their relationship with a piece – and for some, that means they may decide to rebuff his overtures to selling.

“That's why we generally have 180 lots instead of 5,000 like at the Keeneland sale,” said Meng. “I tell people, you're the one who has to love it. You're the one who has to look at it every day. And if you love it, you shouldn't let it go.”

See this year's Sporting Art Auction catalog online here.

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