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You’ll recall from this past spring how hot the first crop of the Maryland stallion Blofeld got, with his first 14 foals to reach the races all having won a race, giving him an outrageous 100% strike-rate from just 24 first-crop foals (just in time to attract a book of 84 mares in 2022 — the most in Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic more broadly). And while he hasn’t been able to (quite) maintain that pace, Blofeld’s stats still make him the most exciting young stallion in the region: he now has 30 winners from 38 runners (79%) out of just 50 foals in his first two crops, including both the colt and filly division winners of the Maryland Million 2YO races in 2022, plus a new stakes winner already in 2023. That’s good for 6% stakes winners to foals, and with four more black-type placed offspring to his credit, that means he’s siring black-type runners at 14% to foals — an excellent number. And his AEI of 1.47 compares very favorably with his 1.21 CI, meaning he’s moving his mares way up to achieve the result that he’s getting.
Merry Mischief is a daughter of the four-time reigning leading sire Into Mischief, he a son of Harlan’s Holiday, and — from just a single foal out of a Harlan’s Holiday mare — Blofeld is the sire of stakes winner Chickieness. So that’s a great start for the cross. Plus, Harlan’s Holiday goes back to Storm Cat in tail-male, and Blofeld (whose own broodmare sire is Storm Cat), has had multiple successful runners already with inbreeding to that former Overbrook Farm legend with stakes-placed Beach Daze, six-time winner Oak Hill Lg and three-time winner Miss Casey, in addition to Chickieness. Merry Mischief’s broodmare sire is Deputy Minister, and Blofeld’s sire Quality Road has crossed with Deputy Minister-line mares to produce G1Ws Abel Tasman, Spring Quality, City of Light, and recent G2W Hopkins.
So this match makes all the sense in the world on paper, and we also love this mating physically: Merry Mischief is a stout, strong-bodied mare with all the substance you could want, but she really needs some leg from a stallion and she will certainly get that from the strapping, leggy, lengthy Blofeld. We can’t wait to see the foal from this pairing hit the track in 2026!