Breeding Digest: Mischief Leads to a Double Take

[Wandering Eyes]

Maybe Ned Toffey should have presented the trophy to himself. Or perhaps the horse should have presented it to him. Because the Thoroughbred is generally here to confuse us, and yet here was one that seemed to be obeying a transparent and coherent destiny: Ted Noffey, dominating a GI Hopeful Stakes sponsored by Spendthrift for the first time, welcomed into the winner's circle by Ted Bates Farm Manager of the Year Ned Toffey.

For good measure, the equivalent prize for fillies had the previous day been won by Tommy Jo, named after the first grandchild of Spendthrift owners Tammy and Eric Gustavson. (Aptly, she is homebred.) Both, of course, are by the farm's champion stallion Into Mischief.

We will not dismay the stubbornly modest Toffey by dwelling again on the tremendous judgement and decency with which he handled his late employer's provocative reset of the commercial stallion model. Suffice to say that any horse intending to meet the standards implied in (nearly) sharing Toffey's name cannot rest easy until sealing that Eclipse Award.

Into Mischief, of course, became the poster boy for what B. Wayne Hughes had set out to do. His fourth and fifth Grade I winners of 2025, heading into the fall as leading juvenile filly and colt, respectively, follow in the slipstream of a son already bestriding the previous crop. These days Into Mischief's ratios of quality are right up where they should be, at his fee, without having ever relented on quantity.

Indeed he has so far fielded 397 starters in his march to a seventh consecutive title, compared with 193 and 148, respectively, for elder statesmen Cupid and Tapit.

Actually Into Mischief's nearest pursuer, in output, is his son (and neighbor) Goldencents with 343. And while Goldencents obviously can't lay a glove on his sire, as only a $10,000 cover, five stakes winners so far this year match the pricier Munnings, who's next with 331 starters. (Moreover Goldencents would currently win a tiebreaker between that pair, with two GSWs playing none.)

Anyone persisting in the notion that a cross can be branded by entire sire-lines will doubtless discover some satisfaction in the fact that Ted Noffey and Tommy Jo are both out of mares by a grandson of Unbridled. I would be rather more impressed, however, had they ever urged the claims of the Old Fashioned nick, in particular!

Runaway winner of the GII Remsen in 2008 before derailing on the Derby trail, Old Fashioned had dwindled to $6,500 when exiled to Korea in 2016. The son of Unbridled's Song left behind one standout, dual Grade I winner Fashion Plate, but Streak of Luck was a solid stakes operator on turf, running second in the GII Buena Vista Stakes and winning the Lady Canterbury Stakes over a mile at Canterbury Park.

Streak of Luck was sold to Aaron and Marie Jones for $620,000 at the 2021 Keeneland November Sale, and the following spring visited Into Mischief. Perhaps the mare made an impression on the Spendthrift team, because they bought the resulting colt at Keeneland this time last year for $650,000. We now know him as Ted Noffey.

Tommy Jo | Sarah Andrew

Streak of Luck evidently found her ability from somewhere, but her dam Valeria (Elusive Quality) ended up winning under a $5,000 tag at Sunland Park, and otherwise produced nothing to belie her mediocre covers. Valeria's siblings were also largely anonymous, disappointingly so in view of their dam's profile: Lindsay Jean (Saint Ballado) won a Grade III on turf and four other stakes, besides boasting a couple of black-type scorers among her half-sisters (one, coincidentally, preceding Streak of Luck by 13 years as winner of the Lady Canterbury Stakes).

And perhaps here is where some genetic embers could be stoked up by Into Mischief. Lindsay Jean's dam was by Pleasant Colony out of a sister to none other than Storm Bird-who presides, of course, over the sire-line now extended by Into Mischief.

To have his full-sister bang opposite, in Ted Noffey's pedigree, may seem fairly tenuous: after all, we're talking about the fifth dam. But it's fun to note that this mirror image is compounded by its combination with Halo: as we've seen, Lindsay Jean was by his son Saint Ballado; while Storm Bird's son Storm Cat produced Into Mischief's grandsire Harlan out of a Halo mare.

And if anyone is prepared to treat Old Fashioned as gateway to a whole sire-line, please note that Lindsay Jean and Harlan are closer up in this pedigree than Unbridled!

 

The Mother of All Parting Gifts

At what proved to be the final round of breeding stock sales before his death, B. Wayne Hughes indulged his farm manager-always a broodmare man, at heart-with a spree that added massive quality to their paddocks. At the 2020 Fasig-Tipton November Sale, in fact, Spendthrift accounted for half of the dozen mares to make $1.5 million or more.

These included Mother Mother (Pioneerof The Nile), a dual stakes scorer placed three times at Grade I level, for $1.8 million. She was naturally sent to Into Mischief, and the resulting filly was retained and sent into the racing division. Unfortunately she has so far beaten a total of two rivals in three starts. But the same formula, the following spring, produced a very different result.

Ted Noffey being led in by Ned Toffey | Sarah Andrew

As with Ted Noffey, Tommy Jo's page contains a fallow core alongside elements that might assist Into Mischief with his alchemy. Obviously Mother Mother herself was highly accomplished, and her half-brother Commanding Curve (Master Command) wildly surpassed the rest of his record when chasing home California Chrome at in the Derby. And their dam, dazingly named Mother (Lion Hearted), showed quite a bit of talent, notably when breaking her maiden by eight lengths at Santa Anita.

Then you hit something of a wall: the next dam, by Topsider, contested serial maiden claimers to no avail, and produced only the kind of pedestrian runners her covers generally warranted. But she was out Proper Miss (Tom Rolfe), a dual stakes winning half-sister to GI Metropolitan Handicap winner Proper Reality (In Reality) and two other stakes winners.

And their dam in turn opens up some fertile territory, being granddaughter of a half-sister to Alanesian (Polynesian)-who can be found, back in 1956, on the same Spinaway roll of honor now topped by Tommy Jo. Among numerous other distinctions, Alanesian became dam of Boldnesian and granddam of Revidere; while her own mother Alablue (Blue Larkspur) ties together the pedigrees of such evocative names as Cryptoclearance and Duke Of Marmalade (Ire).

Incidentally, the paths that have brought Tommy Jo and Ted Noffey into the same barn-and same winner's circle-nearly touched long before their ultimate direction might be guessed. On 28 December 2019, Mother Mother ran third in the GI La Brea Stakes. As she was taken back to the barns, she will have passed the runners in the next race, a Grade III on turf, who just happened to include Ted Noffey's dam Streak of Luck. (She faded into sixth.)

But then it's a small world. The Reverend Spooner, who gave his name to the transposing of first letters in the manner of Ted Noffey, lived not one furlong from where I'm sitting. Many “Spoonerisms” are doubtless apocryphal. Could he really have raised a toast “to our queer dean” when Queen Victoria was a guest of his college? Regardless, I can't picture anyone naming a horse accordingly…

 

A Collector's Item

Too many angles over recent days to accommodate adequately here, but a couple we might “mention in dispatches.”

Albeit pulverised by Ted Noffey-which may prove a common fate-both the second and third in the Hopeful represent the second crop of Tiz The Law, duly consolidating the good work of his first. His 11 graded stakes performers to date, from 130 starters overall, exceed every other sire of his intake by both volume and ratio (five percent of named foals).

Not that the class leader is slowing down. While we doff the cap yet again to Bernardini as damsire, GIII Prioress Stakes winner Praying became Vekoma's fifth graded stakes scorer in a week when he also reached the landmark of 100 winners overall. Vekoma always had volume behind him, but is making it count with 38 percent winners-to-named foals, a ratio exceeded among his peers only by Win Win Win, batting 35-for-54 in Florida.

And surely you didn't expect me to allow a Grade I winner for poor Preservationist to pass unremarked, regardless of the dramas that diluted Antiquarian's Jockey Club Gold Cup. Having been reduced to just 11 mares in 2024, this beautifully bred animal sought pastures new in South Korea-only for his death to be reported in July. In the meantime his $2,500 yearling Chunk of Gold, having run midfield at Churchill, has added an emphatic score in the GIII West Virginia Derby.

To be fair, even I must acknowledge that Preservationist must share the credit for Antiquarian: the only other starter out of Lifetime Memory (Istan) is Fondly (Upstart), recent winner of the GIII Delaware Oaks. With the next two dams both graded stakes winners, better check out Lifetime Memory's Happy Saver colt [802] at Keeneland next week.

 

 

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