Into Mischief Ties Bold Ruler’s Record Sequence

[Wandering Eyes]

At some point, the final day of a given year will also close out his reign. For now, however, its seamless extension has secured Into Mischief parity with Bold Ruler himself, his seventh consecutive general sires' championship matching the Claiborne legend's monopoly between 1963 and 1969. Bold Ruler actually added an eighth title in 1973, courtesy of Secretariat's Triple Crown, but even the clear emergence of two young pretenders to his crown may not prevent Into Mischief extending his reign in 2026.

In the meantime we must qualify this as a modern record, the 19th Century career of Lexington necessarily set aside as belonging to a wholly different environment. In the process, however, we must question whether the Into Mischief era–which he bestrides not just as its highest achiever, but also as its template–can be any more pertinently compared with that of Bold Ruler.

Into Mischief has had 451 starters this year alone. His lifetime tally of 187 black-type winners represents 10.4 percent of 1,802 named foals to date. Even aged 20, and at a prohibitive $250,000, he covered 176 mares last spring. No big deal, perhaps, relative to the books of 274 and 273, respectively, corralled by Tiz the Law and Arabian Knight–yet a world apart from Bold Ruler, whose average crop comprised 28 named foals. In total he sired 366 of those, between 1959 and his death, aged 17, in 1971. His 82 stakes winners therefore work out at 22.4 percent.

The industrial model, enabled by veterinary science and branded by its rags-to-riches paragon, has obviously brought many incidental challenges. In the old days, if you wanted to get your mare to Bold Ruler, she absolutely had to earn the right. Genetic quality was duly locked in. Any time you see a Bold Ruler mare in a pedigree, you can guarantee that she was either an elite runner or producer, and very often both.

But we now have a situation where each new intake of stallions will include several that are each permitted a bigger individual contribution to the gene pool than Born Ruler, even though most will (as a matter of statistical inevitability) subsequently be revealed as corrosive influences.

Bold Ruler | Horsephotos

The irony, of course, is that Into Mischief himself did not contribute to that syndrome. His debut crop comprised 46 live foals; his second, 29. He was so short of support that he notoriously inspired the late B. Wayne Hughes to shake up the whole business with incentive schemes that thoroughly provoked certain more traditional farms. Spendthrift's owner then proved himself an adept player of the numbers game, when populating the roster below his emerging champion: fees were pitched accessibly to smaller breeders, who instead had to accept the cost of a potential catalogue glut. Since his death, there has been a quiet but striking reset at Spendthrift, even as several other farms, following the defeat of a proposed mare cap, have conspicuously released the brakes on stallion books. It may well prove, yet again, that the Spendthrift team are ahead of the curve; and that their pursuers, and imitators, will find themselves ingesting the same old dust!

A digression, plainly, but some such context does feel necessary in obliging the venerable Bold Ruler to share a summit he had previously commanded alone. And it is certainly wholesome to remind ourselves that Into Mischief, while the most modern of sires, emerged from nowhere by the old-fashioned means of proving his sheer genetic prowess.

He has also proved a textbook case in terms of the way his stock evolved in response to the upgrading of his mares. That is by no means automatic. He was certainly upgrading plebeian mares at the outset, and his commercial speed might equally have dominated the aristocrats he began to entertain at higher fees. Instead he has allowed them to stretch out his speed to become a legitimate Classic influence, as we saw with his third GI Kentucky Derby winner in 2025.

True, I will believe that he can sire the winner of a “proper” GI Belmont Stakes when I see it! The fact that no authentic Triple Crown was available neutralized what would otherwise have been an infuriating decision to bypass the GI Preakness with Sovereignty. In the event, of course, the attempt to preserve his fuel backfired when he had to be scratched from the Breeders' Cup anyway. As it was, Into Mischief as usual maintained sufficient clear water on his pursuers to be able to boast that he would still have been champion, with or without his flagship: Sovereignty contributed $5.7 million to a total $32,527,005, which kept Into Mischief $8,560,788 clear of runner-up Not This Time. (All tallies correct through December 29, and duly subject to final updating after some good sport on New Year's Eve.)

That aggregate is second only to the $35,486,571 banked by Into Mischief last year. Remarkable to reflect that when he first raised the purse money bar, in 2020, it was to $22.5 million-a sum actually eclipsed by Not This Time this year, at $23,966,217.

In 2025 Into Mischief has precisely replicated his five Grade I and 17 graded stakes winners last year, but his 27 stakes winners fall shy of the remarkable 36 he amassed then.     Likewise, 224 individual winners could not quite match 254 from 476 starters last year-never mind the preposterous ceiling he reached with 262 winners in 2021. No other sire, incidentally, has ever managed 200.

Significantly, with the future in mind, Not This Time just edges Into Mischief with 29 stakes winners, from 295 starters, representing a stellar ratio of 9.8 percent of starters. (Stellar by modern standards, that is: Bold Ruler might not be so impressed…)

While it may be too early to speak of a seven-year itch, with Into Mischief maintaining apparently inexhaustible libido and fertility, Not This Time and Gun Runner have this year contested the runner-up spot between them for the first time-and in the process left little doubt that it will be one of this pair that eventually usurps Into Mischief.

Not This Time | Sarah Andrew

Not This Time also registered the highest clip for black-type and graded stakes horses, with 51 and 35 respectively representing 17.3 and 11.9 percent of starters. He also led all comers on earnings per starter, at $81,241.

The 11th hour contribution of Goal Oriented, in the GI Malibu Stakes, enabled Not This Time to match Gun Runner with a fourth Grade I winner of the year; and he wins the tiebreaker with 15 graded stakes against 14.

In the end, the $2,237,937 million that separates Not This Time from Gun Runner's haul of $21,728,280 can be clearly credited to his especially prolific campaign on grass.

He tops the turf table on $12,778,483, representing 53.3 percent of his overall earnings; and also sent out 17 stakes winners on grass, including nine at graded stakes and three at Grade I level. Not This Time, who also had a couple of graded stakes winners on synthetics, finishes no higher than eighth in the dirt standings. To be clear, this is all to the good. If he is going to consolidate his sire-line as a brand that combines versatility and class, then he is a stallion equipped not just for the 21st Century but for global influence.

It must be acknowledged that the big European programs have proved remarkably obtuse so far, but Not This Time is going to penetrate there eventually. In the meantime, the frightening fact is that his present juveniles were still only conceived at $45,000! We saw at the yearling sales what to expect from his first crop sired at $135,000, and his upgraded mares will doubtless be making some Classic dirt genes tell in his profile.

Gun Runner is further along his trajectory, his current 2-year-olds sired at $125,000. But if he's also a year older, turning 13, he has one fewer crop in play than Not This Time, whose career was of course curtailed at two. But Gun Runner has had an anointed air from the outset, and has not looked back since producing four Grade I winners among his first sophomores.

With Into Mischief entering the evening of his career, these two have crystallized their candidature for the succession. Significantly, even a champion 2-year-old for Into Mischief (35 such winners from 77 starters, six black-type, for $5.5 million) can't fend off Not This Time (40 winners of $5.6 million, nine in stakes, from 83 starters) as leading sire of juveniles, with Gun Runner (30 from 75, eight in stakes, $4.5 million) clear of the rest in third.

It has been a superb year meanwhile for Twirling Candy, his three Grade I winners helping him to fourth in the general sires' table; and second place by turf earnings. You may be sure that his $75,000 fee will be receiving some attention when our ongoing Value Sires series reaches the top of the pyramid…

Yaupon the Fresh Name among Other Categories

Whatever gentle shifting of gear may meanwhile be taking place at Spendthrift, the industrial approach has certainly played out well in the freshman table over recent years. In 2023, indeed, the farm supplied the first four; an achievement sandwiched by laurels for Bolt d'Oro in 2022 and Vekoma in 2024. Those were all tight races, but it has been clear for a long time now that Yaupon was going to make it four in a row.

He fielded 82 of no fewer than 150 named foals in his first crop, 30 of them winners and eight in stakes company. The latter number, as a ratio of starters, demonstrates that Yaupon is not just dominating by quantity, so he has really followed through on rave reviews for his physique when he entered stud.

Yaupon | Sarah Andrew

While speed was clearly his forte, it augurs well for the Darley pair in second and third-Maxfield and Essential Quality-that they should have laid these foundations while certain to get their stock stretching out profitably with maturity.

Overall, however, this intake should be mortified by the fact that for now they have a solitary graded stakes success between them: the GIII Pocahontas Stakes won by Rock Your World's daughter Taken by the Wind. That is even more embarrassing than the three graded stakes winners mustered by the class of 2023, never mind when compared with the 11 put together by last year's rookies. You can't have it both ways: if the annual stampede to new sires is partly explained by the self-fulfilling logic that most of them will be receiving the biggest and best books of their careers, then they need to make it count.

The Spendthrift team will now be hoping that Yaupon can proceed after the manner of Vekoma, who with a second crop in play has pulled away from the rivals who pushed him so close as a freshman. His seven graded stakes winners this year nearly match their combined tally, Tiz the Law producing five and McKinzie three. True to form, however, two of McKinzie's trio came at Grade I level: his cumulative ratios remain fairly pedestrian, at least matched by several peers, but his good ones have an extremely lucrative habit of making headlines.

The cream has also been rising among third-crop sires, with Omaha Beach's fee duly multiplying after adding 16 stakes scorers this year, five at graded level.

Finally we must salute Tapit, whose books are being carefully managed as he turns 25. He really is a living legend and regains the broodmare title he surrendered last year to the late Street Cry (Ire). The retirement of Medaglia d'Oro leaves Tapit as the single sire still in service among the top 10, with his daughters producing 13 graded stakes winners in 2025. Bernardini's legacy in this sphere, which was so precociously evident, continues to grow as he moves up to second as damsire of 28 stakes winners including three at Grade I level-though Distorted Humor, seventh overall, stands alone in this column. Ambaya (Ghostzapper) in the GI American Oaks became the fifth elite winner out of a Distorted Humor mare in 2025.

The post Into Mischief Ties Bold Ruler’s Record Sequence appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article