Saturday was a huge day for jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. and Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher. Just after repeating in the Pegasus Turf with Colonel Liam, the pair repelled Knicks Go's chance to defend his title in the Grade 1, $3 million Pegasus World Cup with a dominating victory by China Horse Club and WinStar Farm's Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile winner Life Is Good. The 4-year-old son of Into Mischief led from the start and was truly never challenged, defeating co-favorite Knicks Go by about three lengths and finishing nine furlongs in 1:48.91.
The race certainly did not play out as it appeared on paper. Knicks Go, drawn toward the inside and well-known for his early speed, was shuffled back to third around the clubhouse turn as Life is Good and Ortiz kicked away from the rest of the nine-horse field. Life Is Good extended his lead down the backstretch to nearly six lengths, never challenged out in the center of the racetrack, while Joel Rosario and Knicks Go were simply left with too much to do.
After early fractions of :23.12 and :46.35, Life is Good continued to maintain a five-length lead over his rivals while Knicks Go tried to make up ground alongside Endorsed. Life is Good was never threatened through the stretch run, and Ortiz eased him down with a couple of pats in the final sixteenth of a mile to hit the wire three lengths ahead of Knicks Go. Stiletto Boy checked in third, and Endorsed was fourth.
Bred in Kentucky by Gary and Mary West, Life is Good is out of the Distorted Humor mare Beach Walk. A $525,000 purchase at the Keeneland September Yearling sale, Life is Good impressed from the start when winning his first three races for trainer Bob Baffert. Taken off the Derby trail by injury, Life is Good returned in the barn of Todd Pletcher 5 1/2 months later with a second-place finish in the G1 H. Allen Jerkens Stakes. He won the G2 Kelso ahead of an easy win in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. The Pegasus win improves the colt's overall record to six wins from seven starts with earnings of over $2 million.
I know that the industry press is currently saturated with the contention of attorneys, rather than racehorses. And I know that our sport, in the process, is squandering much of the cultural capital that should instead have been invested in the two compelling talents squaring up at Gulfstream Saturday. Yet perhaps one of the protagonists will not just put all these tawdry sagas aside, however briefly, but also pay a timely tribute to a mare who could get anyone interested in the game.
Her dam was once claimed for $5,000, and she herself made only $8,000 as a youngster. Her sire ended up standing for $2,500 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. But she did win a stake at Hoosier Park, elevating her value to $100,000 in the poignant dispersal of half a dozen fillies and mares owned by the late James T. Hines Jr.-who had died with shocking prematurity earlier in the year, in a swimming accident just four days before his best ever horse, Lawyer Ron, confirmed his Derby credentials in the Southwest S. at Oaklawn.
By that stage, at the Keeneland November Sale of 2006, this mare was 10 years old. Her catalog page listed a slipped first foal and two runners who had brought little to the party: her 3-year-old Marquetry filly would break her maiden, at the 10th attempt and under a $10,000 tag at Charles Town, two days after the sale; while her 2-year-old by Orientate had just won a couple of modest races, but only after publication of the catalog. There was also a yearling colt by Harlan's Holiday, who had been bought as a pinhook across town at Fasig-Tipton the previous month; and a weanling filly by Yankee Victor, who not only followed her directly into the ring but also accompanied her, for $11,000, to her new home at Clarkland Farm.
The following spring, the Mitchells of Clarkland sent their new mare to Rockport Harbor–and then watched with delight as her Harlan's Holiday colt, meanwhile named Into Mischief, won the GI Futurity at Hollywood Park.
The rest, of course, is quite literally Turf history. And while we had to close her own chapter this week, the sequel plainly has a long way to go-starting Saturday, when Into Mischief's latest champion, Life Is Good, squares up to Knicks Go (Paynter) in a showdown of unusual purity, with both horses sharing the same domineering style.
There are many reasons to celebrate the fact that Leslie's Lady–with a sire like Tricky Creek, and a dam by Stop The Music out of a One For All mare–should have become one of the great modern producers. For me, however, the principal lesson is how genetic flames can always still be kindled from what we take to be ashes, but are in fact embers.
Though a commercial failure, with no more than 18 stakes winners, a study late in his career placed Tricky Creek fifth among active national sires by percentage starters-to-foals; and seventh, by starts-per-starter. Leslie's Lady herself contributed with nine, 12 and seven starts across her three seasons, and surely her sire deserves some credit for the way that Beholder (Henny Hughes) managed to win Grade Is five seasons running.
So who can say what genetic strands have been revived through Leslie's Lady? Tricky Creek shared a damsire (His Majesty) with Danehill, while his third dam was the Darby Dan foundation mare Soaring (Swaps). At one stage Sheikh Mohammed gave $5.3 million for his yearling half-brother by Kingmambo.
Doubtless many will persevere in the touching notion that the three outstanding foals of Leslie's Lady shared some kind of magic trigger in the Storm Cat line. Personally, however, I will never be persuaded that Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy), for instance, should owe everything to the alchemy of Storm Cat and nothing to the byzantine interplay of 15 others with an identical genetic stake.
If you visit the equivalent generation in the pedigree of Leslie's Lady, the eight mares include several (Soaring as mentioned, but also Flower Bowl, Quill, ShThisenanigans etc) who corroborated their distinction in more ways than one, either as elite runners themselves; as multiple stakes producers; or both. When you look at the virtually seamless quality of stallions seeding that generation, in an era when books remained confined to three dozen or so, then it stands to reason that these mares had earned their access.
I don't know why their combined prowess should have lain dormant, or quite what has ignited it now. But I do know that I can't know, which puts me one step ahead of the guys who purport to have a system or formula. It is the mystery, after all, that captivates us all; and it is also the mystery that gives us all a chance.
Besides the big duel in Florida, Saturday also renews the Derby trial won by Lawyer Ron, when suddenly carrying estate silks for a grieving family; and another, the GII San Vicente S., in which Into Mischief was so disappointing on his reappearance that he disappeared until the fall.
In the Oaklawn race, the man who last year lost the services of Life Is Good runs a rising star of the next crop, even though ineligible for the Derby starting points available to the rest of the field.
Unlike Corniche (Quality Road), whose status is opaque in his continued absence from the worktab, Newgrange (Violence) is owned by a remarkably extensive syndicate. If Bob Baffert's stalemate with Churchill doesn't get resolved in time, then you have to wonder whether so many disparate interests, so many wealthy people accustomed to calling the shots, could contrive both the opportunity and the unanimity to move a Derby colt into another barn.
As I've suggested before, if Baffert wants to introduce a bit of class to a dismal situation for the whole industry, he might perhaps himself insist that his friends and patrons are not left to choose between a chance in a lifetime, at the Derby, and a perceived obligation of fidelity to a guy who has–at least for now–won the thing seven times already. But he's only human, and maybe the spectacle of last year's GIII Sham S. winner running for $3 million out of another barn will be just too maddening for Baffert to evict Newgrange in his wake.
I'm intrigued by a couple of closers in this field, not least one saddled by a promising young trainer name of D. Wayne Lukas, and here's another race where the stars could easily align for Kenny “King Midas” McPeek. But I guess we will probably end up with the usual, collective meekness when it comes to contesting control of the race with a Baffert speed horse.
With no McPeek to worry about in his backyard, Baffert fields three of the five in the San Vicente, a race he has harvested 11 times already. If Doppelganger can put the record straight for his sire in this race, then, we could be looking at an apt day of coast-to-coast achievement for Into Mischief.
In saluting his dam, who was at least granted her full span of years and a peaceful retirement, let's not forget her breeder, who was not. What a legacy they share! The three busiest American stallions of 2021, with 690 mares between them, were Practical Joke, Goldencents and Authentic, all sons of Into Mischief. The Spendthrift champion himself covered 216 elite mares at his monster fee; while his half-brother Mendelssohn, after staggering books of 252 and 242 in his first two years, idled at 197.
So you never know how things will turn out, with horses. Lawyer Ron, launched with much more fanfare than Into Mischief, was in only his second season at stud when lost to colic.
He, of course, was a horse named for a human. These days, conversely, it sometimes feels as though horses are only competing as elegant proxies for humans. Long after the dust has settled on a race, the lawyers will tell us the real finishing order. But there is, thank goodness, a limit to human ingenuity. And in celebrating Leslie's Lady, we celebrate the enigmas we can never unravel. That being so, our quest will always retain its romance; and life will continue to be good.
Jockey Edwin Gonzalez left behind the night life for the beach life 10 months ago, venturing to Gulfstream Park at the tail end of the 2020-2021 Championship Meet after dominating under the radar at Penn National.
The 29-year-old jockey has walked out of the shadows of night racing in Pennsylvania to further his career at the Hallandale Beach, FL racetrack where he will step into the spotlight to ride in all three Pegasus World Cup Invitational races on Saturday's spectacular 12-race program.
“I've come from the bottom,” Gonzalez said. “I got lucky with my agent and all the people who have helped me. I love to win races. I keep working hard. When I got here, I got a lot of opportunities.”
Gonzalez and agent Kevin Meyocks have made the most of their opportunities while based year-round at Gulfstream, so much so that Gonzalez has been named to ride Tracy Farmer's Sir Winston in the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) presented by 1 S/T BET, Live Oak Plantation's March to the Arch in the $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational (G1) presented by Baccarat, and Pedigree Partners LLC's Shifty She in the $500,000 TAA Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf Invitational presented by PEPSI.
Sir Winston and March to the Arch are trained by Hall of Famer Mark Casse, while Shifty She is conditioned by Saffie Joseph Jr., who is currently atop the 2021-2022 Championship Meet trainer standings.
“I started winning races for everybody, Casse, Saffie, so many trainers gave me opportunities,” said Gonzalez, who is sitting sixth in the Championship Meet jockey standings with 19 winners. “I kept giving 100 percent to the horses to make everybody happy and keep working hard.”
Gonzalez got off to a fast start at Gulfstream, winning 59 races, including the 1500th of his career that started in his native Puerto Rico, during the Spring/Summer Meet before going to the sidelines for two months after sustaining a hairline fracture in his right leg July 3. He rode three winners on his first day back and has continued to entrench himself at Gulfstream.
Gonzalez will ride Sir Winston, the 2019 Belmont Stakes (G1) winner, for the first time in the Pegasus World Cup, in which he will face defending champion Knicks Go and Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1) winner Life Is Good.
“I think he has a good chance because you have those two horses that will be in front. I'll be put my horse behind them and then make a run,” Gonzalez said. “My horse is working good. He worked the other day in 47 [seconds] and it was like he was galloping.”
After riding March to the Arch, a multiple graded-stakes winner with more than $980,000 in earnings in the Pegasus Turf, Gonzalez will seek his second graded-stakes victory aboard Shifty She in the Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf. Gonzalez guided the daughter of Gone Astray to victory in the Noble Damsel (G3) at Belmont Park Oct. 23. Gonzalez has gone 3-for-3 aboard Shifty She before finishing second last time out at Gulfstream in the Suwannee River (G3), in which she held gamely to finish a half-length behind Sweet Melania.
“She's a nice filly. I think she has a good chance to win. In her last race, I don't think she was 100 percent. This race, she'll be 100 percent,” Gonzalez said. “She's here. She doesn't have to ship, which is in her favor.”
Kent Desormeaux, scheduled to ride Stilleto Boy (Shackleford) for trainer Steve Moger in Saturday's Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream, was arrested Friday for “Domestic Abuse Battery/Strangulation” according to a Facebook post from the Breaux Bridge, Louisiana police department.
Desormeaux, 51, “was arrested, booked and transported to the St. Martin Parish Jail on the above mentioned charge,” reads the post, which includes a shot of Desormeaux taken upon his arrest. It was unclear who the altercation was with.
Reached Friday, the police department said they did not have any further information. A poster named Nona Kaenel wrote, “I can't stop crying. What he did to my friend was inexcusable. No more hiding.” She also shared the photo and the police department's post of Desormeaux on her own Facebook page at around 1:30 Eastern today and said, “prayers for my friend. She's at the hospital now. Absolutely did not deserve what happened to her.”
Desormeaux is from nearby Maurice, and family lives in the Breaux Ridge area, and speculation was that he may have been there to visit them on the way to ride in the Pegasus. Desormeaux has been riding at Santa Anita, where he is currently sixth in the standings with earnings of $470,000 from five wins in 42 starts.
Desormeaux has had a long history of trouble with the law and racing authorities. Just last week, the California Horse Racing Board released a complaint against him for causing a disturbance in November.
“The offense alleged occurred on or about November 23, 2021 and is as follows,” the complaint reads. “Kent Desormeaux got into a disturbance at the RV park area of Del Mar. He was seen getting into an argument with his girlfriend and yelling causing a disturbance in the RV park area where security had to respond to the location. Desormeaux admitted to drinking alcohol throughout the year which is in violation of Official Ruling DMTD092 in which he was supposed to follow the recommendations of the Winners Foundation. On 12/14/2020, Kent signed an agreement to abstain from using any mind altering or mood changing substances from 12/14/2020 through 12/26/2021.”
While a successful jockey from the time he started riding in 1986, Desormeaux has also struggled with substance abuse and alcohol problems. He failed breathalyzer tests in 2010 at Woodbine, and in 2012 at Belmont. He struck a NYRA security guard with his car in 2011. In 2016, he checked himself into an alcohol rehabilitation program. He was banned from Del Mar in July, 2020 after getting into an altercation, and the following September, the Del Mar stewards suspended the jockey for 15 days for “disorderly conduct–racial slurs, aggressive behavior.”
Following that incident, he enrolled in a three-month program at a local facility, and was evaluated by the Winners Foundation which helps backstretch workers dealing with substance abuse problems. when he came out of the program, he said he had never been “clean this long.” He returned to riding at Santa Anita in December 2020.
According to the Gulfstream Park publicity department, Jose Ortiz will ride Stilleto Boy.
This story will be updated if additional information becomes available.
