Breeding Digest: Humor’s Daughters Giving Him The Last Laugh

[Wandering Eyes]

A week after we saluted the impact of his daughters on the GI Kentucky Derby trail, suddenly Tapit might also have found a colt to redress the one glaring omission on his resume. At the same time, the emergence of Sandman also contributes to a remarkable reciprocation by a still more venerable distaff influence.

Tapit mares having produced American Promise, Tiztastic and Final Gambit across consecutive weekends, Distorted Humor is plainly not to be outdone. Both the big winners last Saturday were out of daughters of the WinStar legend; moreover another son of a Distorted Humor mare, Citizen Bull, has the opportunity this weekend to respond to the breakouts of Sandman and Tappan Street.

Like Tappan Street, the champion juvenile is by Into Mischief. The same Distorted Humor cross has already produced that sire's two most expensive sons, Practical Joke and Life Is Good. The one that gave us Sandman, meanwhile, is represented by Constitution–the horse that has best filled the vacancy left at WinStar by the retirement, in 2021, of the farm's senior pro.

Distorted Humor both started and finished his stud career unusually late, active from six to 28. But he retained sufficient vigor that final season to cover 29 mares, albeit his final crop ultimately numbered only 13. These precious few, now sophomores, are plainly unlikely to include a son competent to extend his male line, which appears largely to hang on the single thread of Jimmy Creed. Distorted Humor's Derby winner Funny Cide was gelded, while the one sired by his son Flower Alley, I'll Have Another, couldn't find an adequate heir.

The game is by no means up, with Jimmy Creed's son Casa Creed now recycling durability and speed at Mill Ridge. As things stand, however, Distorted Humor's legacy remains primarily about his daughters.

Distorted Humor | Louise Reinagel.

Besides the three stallions already noted, these have given us Arrogate and now Arabian Lion. Vaunting Distorted Humor as damsire (now up to 147 stakes winners) was a major positive, then, when both Sandman and Tappan Street made seven figures at auction.

Sandman's $1.2 million purchase at OBS a year ago has already been cleared in racetrack earnings and, while his GI Arkansas Derby was co-authored by witless riding up front, his deeper family could underpin a still more lucrative future at stud.

For his fourth dam is the five-time Grade I winner/co-champion juvenile filly It's in the Air (Mr. Prospector). She was sold to the Maktoums early in her breeding career for $4.6 million and, among others, produced the dam of triple Grade I scorer Storming Home (GB) (Machiavellian) plus the granddam of globetrotting State Of Rest (Ire) (Starspangledbanner {Aus}), winner of elite prizes at Royal Ascot, Saratoga, Longchamp and Moonee Valley. But her most important daughter never even made the track.

From only six foals, Note Musicale (Sadler's Wells) produced two female stars: Music Note (A.P. Indy) not only emulated her dam with five Grade I's but then produced G1 Dubai World Cup winner Mystic Guide (Ghostzapper); while Musical Chimes (In Excess {Ire}) won a Classic in France.

In that context, their half-sister Music Room (Unbridled's Song) appeared a major disappointment, culled by Darley after failing to make the starting gate. Even the single black-type performer she produced, Zinzay (Smart Strike), regressed after finishing second in the GII Jessamine Stakes. Having spent a few years in the WinStar paddocks, Music Room was eventually discarded at age 17 for just $9,000.

Yet something of her aristocratic blood has meanwhile begun to percolate: Zinzay produced another good turf runner in the Grade I-placed stakes winner Moon Over Miami (Malibu Moon), while two daughters by Distorted Music have really stoked up the embers. One produced Whiskey Decision (Into Mischief) to win a stakes, again on grass, at Delaware last year. The other is Distorted Music, dam of Sandman.

Bought as a yearling by Lothenbach Stables for $190,000, Distorted Music won three of eight starts. Her first foal She Can't Sing (Bernardini) won the GIII Chilukki Stakes, and made $1.1 million from Hill 'n' Dale at Bob Lothenbach's dispersal at Fasig-Tipton in February last year. At the same poignant session, Distorted Music's short yearling by Into Mischief made $650,000 from North Ocean Equine, before elevating his value to $1 million at Saratoga barely six months later.

In between those two transactions, Sandman had made his headlines at OBS only to disappoint on debut in June. Two days after the Saratoga auction, however, he broke his maiden over the street–and his blossoming since makes Distorted Music (as a 14-year-old, allowed to go for $375,000) appear a characteristically alert Springhouse Farm pick at the dispersal.

The Distorted Humor-Unbridled's Song cross behind Distorted Music is actually matched by the dam of Citizen Bull. But that is only the start of Sandman's Mr. Prospector branding. Aptly so, too, as It's in the Air was one of the first clues that her freshman sire would be something special. In fact, three of Sandman's first four dams represent Mr Prospector: through Distorted Humor (via Forty Niner), Unbridled's Song (via Fappiano) and Mr. P. himself.

And Tapit, as mate, just doubled that down: his dam is by Unbridled, while his own sire Pulpit is out of Mr Prospector's daughter Preach.

On the other hand, the shiniest fruit on this family tree did not require one ounce of Mr. Prospector. That was European champion Balanchine (Storm Bird), whose granddam was a half-sister to It's in the Air. Hardly the first reference to chlorophyll in this pedigree, and someday far-sighted European breeders may wish to tap into Sandman as best of both worlds.

Tappan Street | Coglianese

Heaven Finding New Horizons

Newfoundland was once one of the most glamorous Thoroughbreds on the planet. As a Storm Cat colt whose first three dams were all Grade I winners, he cost Coolmore $3.3 million at the 2001 Keeneland September Sale. Unfortunately he proved unable to build on a debut success for Ballydoyle, and was transferred to Todd Pletcher.

After winning a couple of Grade III's, he was given a chance at stud in Kentucky. By the time he departed for Chile, however, he left behind nothing of greater distinction than Our Khrysty, who once changed hands for $3,500 but inherited enough talent (maybe from her dam, who also produced GI Whitney Handicap winner Bullsbay (Tiznow)) to win the GIII Turnback the Alarm Handicap by a nose.

Blue Heaven Farm certainly believed in the mare, however, recruiting her for $600,000 at the 2011 Fasig-Tipton November Sale and then giving her some purposeful covers. She has rewarded that faith most handsomely.

Her 2019 daughter by Curlin made $700,000 as a yearling and proceeded, as Grace Adler, to win the GI Del Mar Debutante Stakes. Her next foal is Pyrenees (Into Mischief), who last year won the GIII Pimlico Special before emulating Newfoundland as GI Jockey Club Gold Cup runner-up. And now a couple of Our Khrysty's earlier foals are themselves making a mark.

Bay Harbor (Speightstown) never won but her first foal Miuccia (Mitole) won a sprint stakes at Gulfstream last year before making the GIII Prioress podium. And her second, Briland (McKinzie), made $675,000 at OBS last spring before winning her sole start at Saratoga.

Then there is Our Khrysty's daughter by Distorted Humor, Virginia Key, retained for $90,000 at the 2016 September Sale. That has proved an unbelievably smart decision. Though restricted to four starts, Virginia Key won twice and ran a close third in the GII Gazelle Stakes. Then her second foal not only made seven figures as a Saratoga yearling, but has now upgraded the page as none other than GI Florida Derby winner Tappan Street. Moroever he had not even made his debut when Virginia Key's next foal, a Curlin colt, achieved an even better yield ($1.4 million) at Keeneland last September. Blue Heaven's choice of Gun Runner for Our Khrysty meanwhile paid off with a $975,000 docket at the same sale.

After all these years, we are long accustomed to Distorted Humor's range: he's the horse that broke the seven-furlong track record at Churchill yet came up with GI Belmont winner Drosselmeyer. Even so it still feels remarkable that one of his daughters could give Into Mischief a Derby colt, when her own first two dams are respectively by Newfoundland and Lord Carson. What a marvelous legacy Distorted Humor is leaving us!

Clever Again | Coady Media

How Very Clever

It seemed incredible, last spring, that a debutant bred like Clever Again (American Pharoah) could eyeball a Wesley Ward dasher (who romped in a stakes next time) over 4.5 furlongs of dirt and lose out only by a head.

Clever Again resurfaced at Oaklawn in February to make all over an extended mile, but a four-length rout of a Grade I winner in the Hot Springs Stakes confirms him a horse with no ceiling.

His dam Flattering (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) won her maiden in Ireland by 10 lengths over 10 furlongs of heavy going, before registering her Group success over a mile-and-a-half. Her full sister had to travel farther yet for hers, over 14 furlongs. With American Pharoah's stock having fared so well on turf, you would have prescribed Clever Again an absolute prairie.

But there are streaks in her page that explain how her connections have indeed been Clever Again. Another of Flattering's siblings, by the relative speed influence Lucky Story, is the speedy and precocious Lucky Kristale, who won two Group sprints in her juvenile summer. And their dam was half-sister to Arabian Gleam (GB) (Kyllachy {GB}), who won three Group 2s over 7f. The next dam, meanwhile, is out of a half-sister to Classic miler Don't Forget Me (Ire) (Ahonoora {GB}).

For these strands to get past a Triple Crown winner and Galileo is not something most of us would care to predict. But Clever Again has horsemen of genius in every corner, always a help in a difficult world.

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