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You’ve read it here plenty of times in the past, but with young mares we always prefer to breed them to a couple of proven stallions during their first few years in the breeding shed in order to give the best line on their ability as a producer. As such, we’re excited to send Merry Mischief back to Darby Dan Farm in 2023 after she delivered a colt by Dialed In this spring, this time for a mating with their prolific sire of winners and stakes winners, Tapiture.
Tapiture has consistently ranked near the top of his sire-class across all metrics, slotting in among stallions with significantly higher stud fees than what he has ever charged (like Constitution, American Pharoah, Liam’s Map, Honor Code, etc) and with much less help from his mates (his lifetime CI is just 1.16). He has 19 career stakes winners, including 2023 G3 winner Repo Rocks (most recently 2nd in the G1 Carter), plus 29 more black-type runners. He also finished 3rd by the number of winners he sired in 2022 behind only Into Mischief and Munnings, despite having 200 fewer runners than the former, and 50 fewer than the latter.
Interestingly, Merry Mischief is a daughter of Into Mischief (still no guarantee that their foal will be a winner, but seems about as close to a sure thing as you can get in the breeding business!) — that nick rates a “B+” on TrueNicks and features the likes of G1 winner White Abarrio. Meanwhile, Merry Mischief’s dam is a daughter of Deputy Minister, and Tapit with a Deputy Minister mare has accounted for the likes of G1 winner Tapizar, among others. So we like both of those angles, plus the fact that Merry Mischief is a half-sister to G2 winner Freedom Child, by Malibu Moon — and Malibu Moon is a son of A.P. Indy out of a Mr. Prospector mare, just like Tapit’s sire Pulpit (similar reasoning to why we picked Dialed In for her last year).
We also like this matchup physically: Merry Mischief has filled out into a stout, very strong-bodied mare who could just use a little leg from the stallion, and Tapiture fits that bill to a “T” — we can’t wait to see what they produce in 2024!