Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Distorted Humor connection continues with Tiz the Law
In 2003, Sackatoga Stable and trainer Barclay Tagg made an unlikely run at the Triple Crown with Funny Cide, a New York-bred gelding from the first crop of his sire, Distorted Humor. Funny Cide won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes before finishing third in the Belmont Stakes on a sloppy track.
Seventeen years later, Sackatoga and Tagg completed their personal Triple Crown with 2020 Belmont Stakes winner Tiz the Law, also a New York-bred and also from the first crop of his sire, Constitution. Distorted Humor, now 27, fittingly played a part in the story as well. The stallion is the broodmare sire of Constitution, who stands alongside him at WinStar Farm.
Distorted Humor, a multiple Grade 2-winning son of Forty Niner, is one of the perennial leading sires in the country. In addition to Eclipse Award champion Funny Cide – who eventually retired with 10 stakes victories and more than $3.5 million in earnings – Distorted Humor is the sire of another classic winner in 2010 Belmont Stakes victor Drosselmeyer, who went on to add the 2011 Breeders’ Cup Classic. Distorted Humor’s other top progeny in North America include Canadian champion Hillaby, 2005 Travers Stakes winner and classic sire Flower Alley, two-time Whitney Handicap winner Commentator, and Grade 1 winners Any Given Saturday, Awesome Humor, Bit of Whimsy, Boisterous, Fourty Niners Son, Hystericalady, Jimmy Creed, Joking, and Restless Rider. In total, he is the sire of 165 stakes winners for more than $143 million in earnings.
As good as Distorted Humor is as a sire, he is emerging strongly as a broodmare sire. His Group 3-placed daughter
Baffled has produced three stakes horses to date, led by Constitution. Constitution won a pair of Grade 1 races at Gulfstream Park, the 2014 Florida Derby and 2015 Donn Handicap, and his first crop is led by multiple Grade 1 winner Tiz the Law. Constitution also is the sire of graded stakes winners Amalfi Sunrise, By Your Side, Independence Hall, and Laura’s Light from his first crop, as well as Grade 1-placed Gouverneur Morris, another Kentucky Derby hopeful.
Baffled also is the dam of Grade 3 winner Jacaranda and English Group 2 winner Boynton. The mare has an unnamed full brother to Constitution who is a juvenile this season. She produced a filly by Medaglia d’Oro last year and a colt by that same sire in May.
Distorted Humor also is the broodmare sire of Eclipse Award champion Arrogate, North America’s leading money-winning racehorse after winning, in succession, the 2016 Travers Stakes, 2016 Breeders’ Cup Classic, 2017 Pegasus World Cup Invitational, and 2017 Dubai World Cup. Distorted Humor’s daughters have produced 112 stakes winners, including New Money Honey, winner of the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and 2017 Belmont Oaks, and Grade 1 winners Book Review, Carrick, Elate, Guarana, Molly Morgan, Practical Joke, and Takaful.
Man o’ War connection
Man o’ War, considered by many to be the greatest racehorse of all time, won the Belmont Stakes a century ago this spring, then went on to sire three winners of America’s oldest classic event. Fittingly, the broodmare sire of this year’s Belmont Stakes winner, Tiz the Law, is Tiznow, Man o’ War’s most prominent direct male-line descendant remaining at stud.
Man o’ War’s son War Relic sired Intent, who in turn sired Intentionally, who in turn sired In Reality, the most important factor in keeping Man o’ War’s line alive into the 21st century. In Reality was the sire of Hall of Fame filly Desert Vixen, and his sons included the good sires Relaunch and Valid Appeal, both of whom begat successful sons and grandsons at stud. Relaunch’s sons included Cee’s Tizzy, who in turn begat Tiznow, the only two-time winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and now a successful sire at WinStar Farm.
New York-bred Tiz the Law is out of Tiznow’s Grade 2-winning daughter Tizfiz, also the dam of multiple stakes-placed Awestruck. Tizfiz, who died of colic in the summer of 2019, has produced three winners from four starters. She has a 2-yearold filly and a yearling colt by Mission Impazible remaining for Twin Creeks, which bred Tiz the Law after purchasing the mare in 2014.
“We bought the mare because she was a very good outcross to several of our stallions,” Randy Gullatt of Twin Creeks said. “She had some quality on the racetrack and was a very classy mare.”