Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
PRACTICAL JOKE JUVENILES HAVE SOLID SUPPORT
Two-time reigning leading sire Into Mischief represents the hottest bloodline in America right now – and one that still has brighter days to come. Into Mischief has already made a strong start as a sire of sires and has several accomplished younger sons in the pipeline, including multiple Grade 1 winner Practical Joke, who has his first foals at the races and 2-year-old sales this year.
“Practical Joke’s 2-year-olds are the talk of Ocala,” said Charlie O’Connor, director of sales at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky, where the young stallion resides. “Everyone you speak to has a nice one, and all of the top judges say they have plenty of speed, they look precocious, and are great-training individuals. He is by a sire who can do no wrong, and was an incredibly tough and ultra-consistent racehorse himself . . . . We have very high hopes for his first runners.”
Practical Joke won 5 of 12 career starts and only missed the board twice while earning more than $1.7 million. Trained throughout his career by Chad Brown for Klaravich Stables and William Lawrence, he won his first three starts, including the Grade 1 Hopeful and Grade 1 Champagne Stakes before finishing third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
“Precocity is highly sought after in this market, and one of the cornerstones of Ashford’s stallion program is 2-year-old form and speed,” O’Connor said. “Whilst it is not a complete prerequisite for them to have won at the highest level at 2, it is important for horses to have shown ability at 2, reinforced by a good 3-year-old record.”
Practical Joke continued on in that vein with a solid season at 3. He was second in the Fountain of Youth and Blue Grass, both Grade 2 events, before finishing a game fifth in the Kentucky Derby, a race his connections admitted was beyond his best distance.
Practical Joke returned to win the Grade 3 Dwyer Stakes, then finished third in the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational. Cut back in distance, he won the Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens at Saratoga, his third toplevel triumph. He concluded his career by finishing fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and third in the Grade 1 Cigar Mile.
Practical Joke averaged $115,455 with his first yearlings in 2020, with the buying bench including both end users and pinhookers, suggesting that he could see solid activity at this spring’s 2-yearold in training sales. His most expensive horse sold on the season was a $575,000 colt purchased by West Bloodstock at the Keeneland September yearling sale on behalf of the prominent racing partnership of Mike Repole and St. Elias.
Practical Joke also was represented by one of the most expensive short yearlings of the Keeneland January horses of all ages sale early in 2020, prior to the market effects of the pandemic. Larry Best’s OXO Equine went to $320,000 for a colt at that auction.
“We really like Practical Jokes,” said Katie Taylor of Taylor Made, who signed the ticket on behalf of Best. “They are a little bit different than the Into Mischiefs. They have a lot of substance and size already on them. And they have a little more body to them, but they’ve got a lot of the same good characteristics, too. They are pretty straightforward and easy-going horses. And they all seem really athletic. They speak to me like the American Pharoahs did when they were yearlings. They all are really good movers.”
Practical Joke looks like part of an upcoming surge for Into Mischief, whose first son to stud was two-time Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Goldencents in 2015. Goldencents was the leading freshman sire by individual winners in 2018, and since has been the leading second- and third-crop sire by earnings in 2019 and 2020. Grade 1 winner Audible, third in the Kentucky Derby, led Into Mischief’s sons to stud in 2020, along with Lotsa Mischief, Maximus Mischief, and Rogueish. Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Authentic retired to stud this year for Into Mischief, along with Honest Mischief, Instagrand, Rowayton, and Smolinski.
Best campaigned both Instagrand and Rowayton. An ardent supporter of Into Mischief in the sales ring, he has begun transferring some of that support to his sons, purchasing four offspring of Practical Joke to date, between the weanling and yearling sales. Best also has been active at the breeding stock sales to support his incoming stallions, particularly Instagrand, and has spoken highly of Into Mischief’s continued potential as a sire of sires.
“The sire is unreal,” Best said of Into Mischief. “I just put Instagrand into stallion duty, so I’m betting big on Instagrand. I didn’t sell him – I had offers to sell him. I put him to stud because I believe he has the potential to be an elite sire son of Into Mischief. So I’m obviously one of the biggest fans of what Spendthrift has done with Into Mischief, and my luck with Into Mischief has been quite good.”
Classic Empire’s first juveniles now 2
The anticipation is always high for
the first juveniles by a champion juvenile, particularly one from a continually successful sire line. Thus is the case for Eclipse Award divisional champion Classic Empire, a classic-placed runner by the late Pioneerof the Nile.
Classic Empire is one of two Eclipse champion juveniles by Pioneerof the Nile, the other being American Pharoah, who went on to win the 2015 Triple Crown and is now a leading young sire in his own right. Both of these champions stand at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky, which has been successful developing the stud careers of brilliant runners, including American Pharoah and fellow Eclipse champion and leading freshman sire Uncle Mo.
Classic Empire was unanimously named 2016’s Eclipse Award champion 2-year-old male after a campaign that included victories from the 4 1/2 furlongs of his debut to two Grade 1 victories at 1 1/16 miles in the Breeders’ Futurity and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. He also won the Grade 3 Bashford Manor that season. His only loss as a juvenile came when he wheeled at the start and lost his rider in the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes.
Classic Empire’s 3-year-old season was a roller-coaster. The colt finished third in the Grade 2 Holy Bull Stakes as the heavy favorite, and came out of the race with a foot abscess. He displayed discomfort in his back, and at least twice refused to train at Palm Meadows training center. Trainer Mark Casse sent the colt to the quieter Winding Oaks Farm in Ocala, Fla., where he had been trained as a young horse. After breezing several times there, the colt won the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby. He finished fourth after a troubled trip in the Kentucky Derby.
Classic Empire dueled Derby winner Always Dreaming into submission in the Preakness Stakes and was clear by three lengths in the stretch, but was caught by Cloud Computing at the wire for a head loss. Off that effort, Classic Empire was expected to be favored in the Belmont Stakes, but was withdrawn from consideration the week of the race with a hoof abscess. After refusing to breeze at Saratoga in August – and again exhibiting back discomfort – he was sent back to Winding Oaks to train, but was retired when his connections ran out of time to properly ready him for the Breeders’ Cup.
“His progeny look precocious, and he’ll be well represented in the early 2-year-old sales,” O’Connor said. “From the reports we are hearing from Ocala, they are very fast, athletic, and professional horses, so the expectations are high.”
Candy Ride well represented
Gun Runner, the 2017 Horse of the Year, has, of course, been the most celebrated son of Candy Ride in this freshman sire class. But Candy Ride has other sons in this class, including unbeaten Grade 1 winner Mastery at Claiborne Farm and versatile multiple graded stakes winner Unified at Lane’s End. For their price point, both have been successful in the sales ring with their first offspring.
Mastery was unbeaten in four career starts, including the Grade 1 CashCall Futurity as a juvenile, before injury forced him into retirement. He averaged $161,800 from 15 first-crop weanlings sold in 2019, against his introductory stud fee of $25,000. Last year, he averaged $129,971 from 71 yearlings sold.
“They have good size and scope for a son of Candy Ride, and they have a lot of quality,” Conrad Bandoroff of prominent consignor Denali Stud said of Mastery’s yearlings.
Unified was a graded stakes winner both sprinting and routing as a 3-yearold, taking the Grade 3 Bay Shore Stakes at Aqueduct and the Grade 2 Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont. The following year, he won the Grade 3 Gulfstream Park Sprint and was second in the Grade 1 Carter Handicap.
Unified stands alongside his sire, Candy Ride, and that stallion’s successful son Twirling Candy at Lane’s End, and thus the farm’s staff has had the opportunity to closely examine many progeny from the sire line.
“Unified, himself, is about as good looking a son of Candy Ride as I’ve ever been around,” said Peter Sheehan, yearling manager at Lane’s End. “His offspring remind me a lot of him and of the Twirling Candys that I’ve been around. They’ve got strong, powerful hips, great shoulders, great-moving horses. They look like they’re supposed to look, like they’re by a son of Candy Ride out of a Dixie Union mare. They look like they’re going to be good, honest horses.”
Unified stood for $10,000 in his first season. He averaged $27,221 from 19 firstcrop weanlings sold, and then $43,742 from 65 yearlings sold last year. One of his prominent supporters has been trainer Ken McPeek.
“I bought six Unifieds last year because they looked the part,” McPeek said. “I look at the way they’re made and the way they move and was impressed. Every one I looked at seemed better than the last. He is a stallion that stamps his stock. They had nice hind legs, great shoulders, and great balance. Candy Ride’s sons are going to get more important in the coming years. The ones we have at our Summerfield
Training Center are doing super. They have good minds. He has a huge chance.”
Astern gets advance billing
Australian Group 1 winner Astern will have his first Northern Hemisphere-sired foals in races this season. However, since he began his career in his native Australia for the Southern Hemisphere season before reverse-shuttling to Godolphin’s Kentucky base, he already has active juveniles on his home continent, giving him some advance advertising prior to the sales season here.
Astern, by Medaglia d’Oro, won four group stakes as a 2-year-old, including the prestigious Group 1 Golden Rose. As a stallion, he is represented early by the undefeated filly Seradess. She recently won the listed Cinderella Stakes to give him a highprofile runner flying the flag early.
Cupid, Klimt popular at stud
Into Mischief led all North American stallions with 245 mares bred in 2018, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred. His two closest pursuers on that list were a pair of popular sires who are part of this year’s freshman class – Cupid with 223 mares and Klimt with 222 mares.
Grade 1 winner Cupid, standing at Ashford Stud, is looking to become the latest successful son of perennial leading sire Tapit, who is represented by two sons to sire Eclipse Award champions – the late Tapizar, sire of two-time champion Monomoy Girl, and Flashback, sire of champion juvenile British Idiom.
Klimt, also by a prominent sire in Quality Road, stands at Darby Dan Farm. The young stallion nearly tripled his $10,000 introductory stud fee, averaging $28,540 from 96 yearlings sold last year. As a Grade 1-winning juvenile, he could continue to be popular this season.
“The future is bright for Klimt,” Darby Dan stallion director Ryan Norton said. “He was an accomplished racehorse, he possesses a stallion’s pedigree, and has a great physical to match. He bred a strong first book of mares.”
In addition to Eclipse champions Gun Runner and Arrogate, dual Royal Ascot winner Caravaggio, Practical Joke, Classic Empire, Mastery, Unified, Astern, Cupid, and Klimt, this freshman sire class includes Grade 1 winners Bal a Bali (Calumet Farm), Connect (Lane’s End), Dortmund (Korea), Gormley (Spendthrift Farm), Greenpointcrusader (Ocala Stud), Hootenanny (Ward Ranch), Keen Ice (Calumet), Lord Nelson (Spendthrift), Midnight Storm (Taylor Made Farm), Noble Bird (Ocala Stud), and Shaman Ghost (Adena Springs North).