Derby win boosts Into Mischief

Roses have thorns. About 20 minutes before Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, B. Wayne Hughes’s Spendthrift Farm co-owned two entrants – Authentic, by its reigning leading sire Into Mischief, and Thousand Words. Then, Thousand Words, whom Spendthrift partners on with Albaugh Family Stables, reared while being saddled and fell in the paddock, resulting in his late scratch.

“You’re within 20 minutes of the horse running in the Kentucky Derby that we picked out and bought as a yearling,” Spendthrift stallion sales manager Mark Toothaker said. “You don’t have a Kentucky Derby starter until the gates open.”

“As we were walking through the tunnel, I said to our general manager, Ned Toffey, ‘If there is a Derby god out there . . . maybe we can win,’” he recalled, his voice breaking and tears welling in his eyes. “For [Authentic] to just keep giving through the stretch, it was like he had an extra push.”

Thorns have roses. Authentic gamely turned back favored Tiz the Law in the Churchill Downs stretch, giving Hughes his first Derby winner and giving Into Mischief his first classic winner, answering questions about the sire’s ability to produce stamina.

“Into Mischief, as great as he’s been, it’s come more at a mile, a mile and an eighth, and under,” Toffey said of the stallion, who claimed the national general sire title in 2019 with a push from champion female sprinter Covfefe. “So it probably wasn’t totally unfair.”

Into Mischief, a Grade 1-winning juvenile by Harlan’s Holiday, covered 50 mares, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred, for a fee of $7,500 in 2012, the year his first foals hit the track. Last year, he covered 241 mares for a fee of $150,000, and that number rose to $175,000 in 2020. His rise from humble beginnings has paralleled Spendthrift’s under Hughes. Hughes bought the historic property in 2004 and started off with one stallion and what Toffey estimated as about 30 mares. This year, the farm stood 24 stallions at its Kentucky base alone. It also is involved in regional stallions and has expanded to an Australian division.

Hughes has expressed the desire to grow racing, and has both incentivized breeding to his stallions and rewarded breeders with innovative breeding programs such as “Share the Upside” and “Breed Secure.” Along with Starlight Racing and Madaket Stables, he partners in Authentic with Michael Behrens’s MyRacehorse, which sells microshares in horses to provide an ownership experience with no continuing expenses.

“Wayne really took to the idea of being able to bring horse ownership to every man, literally every man and woman, any economic stratus, race, anything,” Spendthrift president Eric Gustavson said. “There’s no limit because anyone, literally anyone, can buy in. And he loved that idea. He’s not only a businessman, but he’s just a real advocate for racing, and he wants to help racing grow. He really put his money where his mouth is.”

Along with Covfefe, a dual Eclipse Award champion last year, and Authentic, Into Mischief is the sire of Grade 1 winners Audible, Gamine, Goldencents, Mia Mischief, and Practical Joke. Audible finished third in the 2018 Derby, and Owendale was third in the 2019 Preakness as the stallion knocked at the door of Triple Crown success.

Authentic’s breakthrough keyed a huge day for Into Mischief with three graded stakes winners, as Frank’s Rockette won the Grade 2 Prioress at Saratoga and Cool Arrow won the Grade 3 Smile at Gulfstream. Gamine also finished third in the Kentucky Oaks, hours after By My Standards, by Goldencents, won the Grade 2 Alysheba at Churchill over Owendale.

Standout freshman and sophomore sire Goldencents stands alongside his sire at Spendthrift, which has doubled down on its investment.

“People have asked us, ‘How many sons of Into Mischief do you want?’ and we say, we want them all!” Toothaker said. “It’s the best blood out there right now in American racing.”

Spendthrift introduced Into Mischief’s son Maximus Mischief this year and has secured the future rights to Goldencents’s graded stakes winner Mr. Money. Authentic, of course, is a future Spendthrift stallion.

“What a thrill it’ll be to be able to lead out a Kentucky Derby-winning son of Into Mischief, our greatest stallion of all time,” Toothaker said.