- Into Mischief had an unremarkable racing record of three wins in six starts but he has become one of the top sires in Thoroughbred history.
- His stud fee was set at a modest $12,500 when he was starting out but has now climbed to $250,000.
- The stallion has sired 13 horses that have raced in the Kentucky Derby, with two more expected in Saturday’s race barring a last-minute scratch.
LEXINGTON, Ky. — The main courtyard at Spendthrift Farm is like a monument to horse racing history. Look straight ahead and you’ll see a statue honoring Nashua, a two-time champion in the 1950s, positioned over his final resting place. Walk through the U-shaped barn a few feet beyond his grave and you’ll see plaques commemorating where all-time greats like Seattle Slew and Affirmed once lived. A little further out, there’s a row of gravestones marking some of the farm’s former residents, including a horse named Caro, who sired the filly Winning Colors that beat the boys in the 1988 Kentucky Derby.
Even now, these idyllic, cupola-topped stallion barns with white columns and olive-colored roofs are one of horse country’s top attractions. Nearly every day, tour groups will file in to catch a glimpse of the powerful Thoroughbreds they once watched run for glory.
Among the current residents parading through the grounds are two recent Belmont winners, a Preakness winner, a Breeders’ Cup Classic winner and the most accomplished of all: 2020 Kentucky Derby winner Authentic, who went on to be named Horse of the Year. All 29 of the farm’s stallions live here, each getting a 16-by-16 foot stall with a window and luxurious straw bed − plus a private paddock across the way to exercise and graze. And all of this is just a short walk to the breeding shed where they’ll do their job as many as two or three times a day during peak season.
But the true star of the farm — the animal that, in many ways, is the single most valuable commodity in the sport — is a horse barely anyone would remember from the racetrack.
Shortly after running second in a Dec. 26, 2008 stakes race at Santa Anita, Into Mischief retired with an unremarkable record of three wins in six starts. He never participated in the Triple Crown, running just once beyond seven furlongs and sitting out most of his 3-year old season due to nagging injuries.
When he was brought home to Spendthrift to begin his second career, Into Mischief was such an afterthought that his stud fee — the price mare owners pay for a mating — was set at a modest $12,500. Even then, he didn’t attract much interest from breeders and the price dropped further. Whether it was his own pedigree, his indifferent race record or his compactly-muscled, Olympic sprinter-like physique that didn’t suggest success at the 1 1/4-mile Kentucky Derby distance, there wasn’t a ton to get excited about.
“We had to come up with incentive programs,” Ned Toffey, the farm’s general manager, said. “There are plenty of horses up there that you’d say, ‘I like this one. I like that one.’ But he’ll come out, and if you didn’t know who he was, you’d go, ‘Oh OK, there’s a horse.’ He’s not spectacular.”
After a few years, though, the thoroughbred racing and breeding world discovered that what met the eye had no real correlation to the genetic impact Into Mischief was making on his female counterparts. For whatever reason, his offspring — even those produced with the lesser-regarded mares being bred to him — were consistently running and winning at higher rates than the baseline.
Though Into Mischief’s contribution to the thoroughbred industry is now evident at practically every racetrack or horse sale across the country as North America’s leading sire for six consecutive years, he has put his stamp on the Kentucky Derby specifically in a way that no other stallion this century can match.
Two of his sons, Authentic in 2020 and Mandaloun in 2021, have won America’s most important race. Barring a last-minute scratch, two more of his progeny — Citizen Bull and Sovereignty — will give him a 14th and 15th Derby starter, making him the most prolific Derby sire in the last 20 years. Another one of Into Mischief’s sons, Goldencents, sired last year’s Derby winner Mystik Dan. And this year Authentic has his first Derby starter in Rodriguez, the Bob Baffert-trainee who won the Wood Memorial Stakes.
Even if Into Mischief stopped breeding today, his impact on the Derby will be felt for generations. But he’s not stopping, even at age 20. As we speak, Into Mischief is in the midst of a breeding season that will bring him roughly 200 mares at $250,000 per mating, making him a $50 million business on his own. Given his track record, any of those resulting foals could be a candidate to win the 2029 Derby.
The question, given how much money is being spent every year for his reproductive capabilities, is why Into Mischief’s DNA has cracked the code of the race everybody in the world wants to win.
“Horses like this just don’t come along very often,” Toffey said. “I get asked quite a bit: What is it that makes Into Mischief such a great sire? And the only answer I can give you is, ‘I don’t know.’”
What makes a successful Kentucky Derby sire?
A decade ago, American Pharoah became horse racing’s 12th Triple Crown winner, ending a 37-year drought. Naturally, breeders were excited because of the horse’s exceptional balance and fluid movement, which allowed him to carry his natural speed over the classic distances of the Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes. As a result, he was valued at more than $20 million in a deal that sent him to international powerhouse Coolmore, which initially set his stud fee at $200,000.
There was just one problem: American Pharoah’s early offspring didn’t perform much like him. In fact, the top runners from his initial crops seemed to do better on grass than dirt. His desirability as a stallion declined, to the point where it now costs just $45,000 to breed to him. This year, finally, American Pharoah will be represented by his first Derby runners: Japan-based Luxor Cafe and longshot Publisher.
“We’ve been waiting for one like that, and proud of the fact he’s got (two) in there,” said Bob Baffert, who trained American Pharoah to glory in 2015. “Some of them, it takes awhile.”
How is it that a horse like American Pharoah, with all the right traits on paper to reproduce Derby contenders, has underperformed relative to expectations while Into Mischief can come out of nowhere and rewrite the history of the race through his progeny?
That’s both the mystery and the beauty of a sport where only 20 horses out of roughly 18,000 foals born in America will end up in the starting gate on Derby Day. And it’s why there’s an entire sub-industry devoted to studying pedigrees and bloodlines in hopes of producing a fast horse, or at least one that will turn a huge profit at the sales ring.
“There are two things happening genetically in any breeding situation: accumulation of positive genetic attributes or dilution of positive genetic attributes,” said Dr. Edward Messina, a longtime New York-based pedigree consultant and breeder. “And that’s where the puzzle is.”
Around the racetrack, they like to say a good horse can come from anywhere. That’s true. A horse named Flower Alley, for example, was a bust as a sire and eventually sold to a farm in South Africa. But he did produce one exceptional colt in I’ll Have Another, who won the 2012 Derby and Preakness.
Those outliers exist all over the sport. But the reason pedigree analysis is such big business is that patterns do emerge over time, both with particular sires and the types of mares they are bred to.
There are roughly 1,200 active sires in North America. Over the past 20 years, 197 sires have been represented in the Kentucky Derby. Out of those 197, just 14 have sired five or more Derby starters. These names seem show up year after year in Derby pedigrees: Tapit, whose 14 starters over the last 20 years actually exceeds Into Mischief’s 13, Candy Ride (10), Curlin (9), Tiznow (8), Malibu Moon (7) and Scat Daddy (7).
Then there’s a group of younger sires who have already shown a propensity to produce Derby runners led by Good Magic (sire of 2023 winner Mage) and 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify, who will have his fourth starter already this year in American Promise.
That’s not an accident, but trying to figure out the why − and, most importantly, how to do it again − is art as much as science. Similar to human children of great athletes who grow up to also succeed in sports, there is most likely a genetic predisposition, an environmental component and a whole lot of apparent randomness we don’t have the capability to fully explain.
Thus, myriad theories are put to work every year in the breeding industry. Some rely on so-called ‘nicks,’ which is essentially mixing specific families that have proven to have some compatibility in the past. Some breeders look to magnify specific traits through inbreeding of certain sire lines that would show up within three or four generations on both the mother and father’s side of the pedigree; others try to avoid too much inbreeding because of the genetic infirmities it tends to create.
It’s complicated, heavy stuff with rabbit holes that can occupy lifetimes for those who choose to study it.
But for the layman, it’s probably easiest to understand through the lens of a horse like Into Mischief, who makes a lot more sense as a great Derby sire now in retrospect than he did when he came off the racetrack back in 2008.
Start with his own pedigree, which tilts toward the high cruising speed type horse that has become dominant in the Derby while also getting stamina influences from the sire line of Northern Dancer, the 1964 Derby winner who became arguably the most important stallion of the 20th century.
Sprinters are imbued through the female side of Into Mischief’s pedigree, but the potency of those bloodlines only revealed itself years later when his mother, Leslie’s Lady, produced champion mare Beholder and then the colt Mendelssohn, who ran in the 2018 Derby. For one mare to produce three Grade 1-winning runners is almost unheard of, but underscores the quality of animal that Into Mischief passes on to his offspring.
The second factor necessary for the Derby is precociousness, since even qualifying for the race necessitates a high level of performance early in a horse’s career. Though Into Mischief did not have a notable race record, his biggest win came in the 1 1/16th-mile Hollywood Futurity, which at the time was one of the most prestigious races for 2-year olds. You can see that in his sons and daughters, who tend to mature early.
“Into Mischief is an outlier in as much as he had a solid pedigree, but it wasn’t anywhere near as good as we subsequently realized it to be,” said Alan Porter of Pedigree Consultants. “And even though he wasn’t an obvious (Triple Crown) horse, I suspect the truth is he was a much, much better racehorse than we got to see.”
But here’s where the guess work really begins.
To put it in the simplest possible terms, mating two horses will not necessarily produce a foal that blends the characteristics of both parents. Think of it more like a genetic wrestling match, where the traits from one side or the other will prevail.
“A lot of people think you can take big and small and you’re going to get medium,” said bloodstock agent and pedigree analyst Clark Shepherd. “More times than not you’re going to get one or the other.”
So the most consistently successful stallions, in a sense, are the ones whose genes most often win that competition.
That’s why Into Mischief’s offspring are generally like him: Very fast early in their careers, with the ability to carry speed around two turns, characteristics that lend themselves to Derby success. That’s why Tapit’s sons tend to be gray in color, grinding in running style and rambunctious to the point of being difficult. It’s also most likely why four of them have won the 1 1/2-mile Belmont while none have won the speed-favoring Derby.
Though different in what traits they pass on, Into Mischief and Tapit are hugely successful stallions because their genes tend to dominate, which helps produce good runners regardless of which traits the mare is bringing to the table.
“With Into Mischief, you can accidentally breed a good horse — because of him,” Shepherd said.
Conversely, it points to why American Pharoah was an early disappointment in the breeding shed. His traits would seem to not be as dominant in that cosmic dance of science and mystery. One possible explanation for his early progeny’s affinity for grass would be the affiliation with Coolmore, which is headquartered in Ireland, thus giving him access to more mares with European bloodlines. American Pharoah siring two Derby starters this year for the first time could be luck, but it could also be the product of smarter matings after several years of data.
“What you’ll see sometimes is people adjust the kind of mares they’ll breed to a stallion,” Porter said. “They see what they’re getting and then make adjustments and you’ll see a career trajectory change.”
This means multi-million dollar bets are constantly being made on potential stallions based not just on a projection of whether they’ll produce future Derby contenders but also without any scientific way to project what matings would optimize a farm’s investment. Even with the industry inevitably turning to AI and advancements in genome testing, it’s still mostly a guessing game — for now.
“It’s in its infancy, but its going to be a very important factor for the future,” Messina said. “People that don’t pay attention to it will be left behind without a doubt. A lot of the wealthy people are trying to figure out where the speed genes are and whatnot and do that genomic type study of animals that were successful and see where the elements are genetically and try to do that kind of testing. But not everybody can afford it.”
Inside the breeding shed at Spendthrift Farm
As one can imagine given that their job is to run an assembly line of coital encounters during the 4 1/2-month breeding season − sometimes as many as 60 per day − the vocabulary used on a minute-by-minute basis in the Spendthrift breeding shed might make even a sex ed student a little squeamish.
But it is, if nothing else, an impressively straightforward, professional and labor-intensive operation; a step-by-step process necessitated by the fact that artificial insemination is against the rules of The Jockey Club. Given that you’re dealing with 1,000-pound animals in the grips of their natural urges, the process is remarkably quick and easy when it’s time for the stallion to do his part. After five or 10 minutes from beginning to end, the horse is back in his stall, preparing to do it all over again while another group of mares gets prepared for a mating.
It is here, though, where talking about Into Mischief’s — shall we say, enthusiasm for the job — that evokes memories of giggling in the eighth grade lunchroom.
In fact, they say, the only time Into Mischief ever acts up is when he knows that his counterparts in the stallion barn have left to go breed. Scratches and dents in the paneling of Into Mischief’s stall are the product of pure horse jealousy.
“He’s such a fertile horse and has such a great libido. His mares get in foal almost…right away,” Toffey said, pausing to snap his fingers as he explained why Into Mischief actually accomplishes more while working less than his counterparts who need — ahem — multiple tries to impregnate a mare.
“He’s so efficient. He’s always been able to breed a lot of mares with relative ease. He considers himself − and rightly so, just how stallion behavior is − the one who rules the roost here. And from our judgment, he’s right.”
It’s easy to see why.
When the tour groups come to Spendthrift, they start at the B. Wayne Hughes Visitor Center, where the blanket of roses won by Authentic — as dried-up and faded as it might be — is laid into the floor of the entrance under glass casing. It is one of many trophies and mementos belonging to Hughes, the founder of Public Storage, who passed away in 2021 and left the operation of the farm to his daughter and son-in-law.
And in some ways, the mystique of this place is possible only because Into Mischief came along when he did.
After Hughes bought Spendthrift in 2004 and decided to get into the stallion game, he was so eager to build a marketable roster with horses he already owned that he actually retired Into Mischief against the desires of trainer Richard Mandella, who thought he might become one of the best horses in the country as a 4-year old.
That was actually quite a risky bet on Hughes’ part. If Into Mischief had won big races at 4, he would have been instantly desirable as a stallion. Instead, he came out of his racing career with zero fanfare and not much more interest from breeders.
But Hughes ultimately won that bet in a major way.
Not only did the racing world notice that Into Mischief’s early runners were winning at a higher clip than normal, he backed it up when two members of his first crop were in the Kentucky Derby field. Interest rose, leading to better quality mares, which begat a historic run of dominance over the stallion rankings. Now, he has a chance to join just a handful of other sires — none since the 1950s — to have three Derby winners. And along the way, he’s become a $50 million per year economy unto himself, undergirding a business that supports 50 employees and requires 1,200 acres of Kentucky bluegrass.
“A horse like Into Mischief pays for a lot of the ones that don’t work out as well,” Toffey said. ‘Branch Rickey said, ‘Speed is the great eraser.’ Well, Into Mischief is our great eraser.”
But, of course, that cash machine doesn’t ring forever. He’s 20 now, past middle aged for a Thoroughbred. Into Mischief’s contribution to the gene pool will go on for centuries, but his $250,000 stud fee payable to Spendthrift Farm will not. Even for an animal with such legendary libido, there’s nowhere to go but…down.
That’s why the search for the next Into Mischief never ends and hope springs eternal. Maybe Authentic, who’s off to a bit of a slow start, will turn things around. Maybe Forte, the 2023 Derby favorite who was scratched the morning of the race due to a foot injury, will live up to his potential in the breeding shed instead of the racetrack much like Into Mischief. There’s a lot of early buzz about Taiba, a brilliantly fast horse who was probably best at a mile but will perhaps be the conduit to pass on the stamina of his great-grandfather, A.P. Indy.
Only the passage of time will allow breeders to figure any of that out. But when it comes to finding another stallion like Into Mischief with DNA so dominant that it changed Kentucky Derby history? He may be a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.
‘We don’t know, and we can’t know,’ Toffey said. ‘We’re playing genetic roulette here.’