8 minute read
The perfect couple
Good Magic and Puca are the “Posh and Becks” of US racing, writes Melissa Bauer-Herzog
IF A POWER COUPLE existed in US racing right now it would be stallion Good Magic and mare Puca (Big Brown), whose son Dornoch won the 156th Belmont Stakes (G1) on June 8.
For the second straight year, the pair have played a major part in the result of the Triple Crown following Mage’s victory in last season’s Kentucky Derby (G1).
Dornoch’s victory provided a sports crossover of sorts as well as his ownership includes retired baseball player Jayson Werth. He won the World Series with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008 and reported that the Belmont victory was comparable.
“I’ll put this up there with anything I’ve ever done,” said Werth. “This is the top of sports. Horseracing is the most underrated sport there is. This is as big as it gets. The emotions you feel when you play in a playoff game, when you win a World Series game, it is the top of sports, and this is where we’re at.”
Good Magic’s two Classic winners gives him an even better start than his own prolific sire Curlin enjoyed at the beginning of his career – he sired Belmont Stakes (G1) winner Palace Malice from his first crop.
He then had a fine run with at least one horse placed in a Classic from each of his next five crops, including the Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Exaggerator.
Good Magic has plenty of opportunities to do even better than his sire with his stud fee and popularity with mare owners rising quicker than Curlin’s at the same stage.
Puca is only a 12-year-old, but she has a chance to complete her own unique Triple Crown after her second and third foals secured her two jewels.
She has a two-year-old colt by McKinzie (Street Sense) named Baeza, who sold for $1.2 million at Keeneland September last year, and she produced a Good Magic colt this spring.
Puca was purchased privately for $2.9 million at last year’s Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale by John Stewart and was bred to Into Mischief this year.
Stewart has already stated that Puca is heading to Europe for a date with Frankel in 2025.
Another stallion, who has doubled up on Classic winners over last two years, is the late Arrogate, whose last crop includes this year’s Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Seize The Grey.
The grey colt owned by the MyRacehorse syndicate became the seventh Preakness winner for 88-year-old trainer D. Wayne Lukas, whose previous Classic win came in 2013 when Oxbow won the same race.
Owned by 2,570 individuals, who purchased a share for just $127 each, Seize The Grey was also the second Classic winner for the over-achieving ownership
Dornoch: the Belmont Stakes winner became the second Classic star for the second year in succession by Good Magic and out of Puca after Mage’s Kentucky Derby victory in 2023 group after Authentic won the 2022 Kentucky Derby.
“It doesn’t get old. It’s still the same. In 1980 I had the first one here I ever ran, and it still feels the same,” said Lukas.
“With 2,570 owners! Isn’t that something, to make that many people happy? It’s a helluva concept. It really is. To see that many people happy in racing is really special. I’m happy, but I love the fact I could make them happy.”
Seize The Grey had originally been aimed toward the Kentucky Derby, but was stuck on the outside looking in on the Road to the Kentucky Derby leader board after all the prep races were run. He ran on the Kentucky Derby under card, however, and caught the eye with a length win in the Pat Day Mile (G2). Never one to duck a race, Lukas put him on a van to Pimlico and the colt joined the Triple Crown series two weeks later.
The Preakness Stakes turned into an all-the-way victory for the three-year-old, who won by over two and a quarter lengths to become Arrogate’s sixth Grade 1 winner.
Arrogate didn’t sire a Classic colt from his first crop, but that group did yield Kentucky Oaks (G1) winner Secret Oath.
Unfortunately for breeders Arrogate has had only two Grade 1-winning colts so far with last year’s champion three-year-old and Belmont Stakes (G1) winner Arcangelo already at stud.
The stallion does have multiple graded stakes-winning males, however, and it stands to reason a few of those will end up as stallions – and possibly Grade 1 winners – in coming years.
Among that group is the Bob Baffert-trained Mr Fisk, whose Hollywood Gold Cup (G2) victory on May 27 makes him a likely candidate for Grade 1 races this summer and autumn.
For the first time since 2019 a horse contested all three Triple Crown races when Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Mystik Dan added the last two legs of the Crown to his resume. He is also the sixth Kentucky Derby winner since 2000 to contest all three legs of the series, despite failing to win the Preakness, and the first since Orb ran all three in 2013.
In the Derby, Mystik Dan was sent off at odds of 186/10 after finishing third in the Arkansas Derby (G1) in his final prep with a victory in the Southwest Stakes (G3) his only non-maiden victory in five previous starts.
However, a masterful ride by Brian Hernandez Jr. saw Mystik Dan slide up the rail to win by a nose in a three-way photo finish for the win with Sierra Leone (Gun Runner) and Forever Young (Real Steel) completing the top three.
The Goldencents colt went on to finish second in the Preakness and eighth in the Belmont reportedly having subsequently scoped poorly.
Trainer Kenny McPeek said that Mystik Dan will now aim toward the Travers Stakes (G1) and Pennsylvania Derby (G1) .
“The last 20 years I’ve ridden in Kentucky, and as a young kid out of Louisiana, I had the chance of sitting in the same corner as Calvin Borel,” said Hernandez of the Derby victory.
“Watching him ride all those Derbys all those years, and today with Mystik Dan being in the 3 hole, I watched a couple of his rides with Super Saver and Mine That Bird, and I decided that we were going to roll the dice.
“That’s the nice thing about Kenny, he lets me make those decisions. We had the right kind of horse to give him that kind of trip.”
This was the first US Classic winner for a stallion son of Into Mischief, though Into Mischief himself is responsible for Kentucky Derby winner Authentic.
NO US-BASED trainer had a better month than Kenny McPeek during the Triple Crown series, and ahead of the Kentucky Oaks (G1), McPeek made it clear that he had total faith in his entrant Thopedo Anna (Fast Anna) warning: “They better bring a bear because I’m bringing a grizzly! I wouldn’t be afraid to run her against the colts.”
Thorpedo Anna proved her trainer right with a 4.75l victory in the Oaks.
McPeek and Hernandez became only the third trainer/jockey combination to win the Derby and Oaks in the same year, and the first to do it for different owners.
McPeek also became only the third trainer to train the winners of both races in the same year alongside Ben Jones – who did it twice in 1949 and 1952 – and Herbert Thompson in 1933.
After the Kentucky Oaks, McPeek pondered running the filly in the Belmont Stakes if Mystik Dan didn’t run, but she was rerouted to the Acorn Stakes (G1). The move paid off as she confirmed her position at the three-year-old fillies’ division – and possibly among all three-year-olds. She won the Grade 1 by over 5l with no real competition, even after losing a shoe early in the race.
“One of our goals coming into the race was to stamp her as the best three-year-old in America,” McPeek said. “Whether we take on the colts [later] will be fun and it will be interesting.
“I’ll probably tease you all with what I’m thinking about. We’ll see. If she’s doing really well and she came back in the Coaching Club, and Mystik Dan didn’t make the Travers, then who knows? You might see us here. But I’m not going to run them against each other if I can help it.”
Thorpedo Anna is the first graded stakes winner for the late Fast Anna, who has sired 14 stakes winners and 24 stakes performers from his 192 winners.
Fast Anna became the sixth Medaglia D’Oro son to sire a Grade 1 winner with those winners coming in four different countries.
