Sometimes when choosing a mate for one’s mare, you’ll have a direction in mind to take her that seems just about perfect, but — for one reason or another — you just don’t get around to it straightaway. With our mare Faze the Nation, we’ve thought about a Storm Cat-line stallion for her for several years now, given that she has three black-type siblings by Lion Heart’s Maryland-based son Bourbon Courage, plus a top-class race mare by the Harlan’s Holiday son Majesticperfection appearing under her third dam. Especially in light of the fact that the Into Mischief sire-line specifically has had loads of success with mares from her Distorted Humor sire-line, the write-up for such a match just about writes itself.
But thanks to some budgetary concerns a few years back, then exciting first-year stallions who made sense for her for other reasons, and some bad luck, Faze the Nation still hasn’t been bred to a Storm Cat-line stallion seven years into her broodmare career. Well, we’re finally going to rectify that glaring omission in 2026 when she will be bred to the brilliant first-year multiple G1 winner Raging Torrent at Lane’s End.
As noted above, Faze the Nation is a half-sister to the Maryland-bred champion 2YO filly and multiple black-type winner Malibu Moonshine, to the black-type placed 2YO fillies Malibu Hooch and Maxine’s Tap Room, and to the 2YO filly of 2025 named Malibu’s Rumrunner, who placed in her only start this season. All four of those fillies were sired by Bourbon Courage, whose G1-winning sire Lion Heart is a grandson of the legendary Storm Cat. Two more winning half-siblings to Faze the Nation were sired by another Lion Heart son in Line of David. And then under Faze the Nation’s third dam is the multiple G3 winner and G1-placed Four Graces, by Majesticperfection — and that latter horse is a son of the Storm Cat grandson Harlan’s Holiday, who is better known as the sire of Into Mischief.
Into Mischief and his sons are currently re-writing the sire record books, as the Spendthrift Farm stallion has now sired three winners of the Kentucky Derby and will be the Leading Sire in 2025 for the seventh straight year. His sons Practical Joke, Authentic, Goldencents and Maximus Mischief have all sired G1 winners of their own already, and the nick of Into Mischief and his sons with Distorted Humor-line mares is one of the most successful crosses out there, having produced G1 winners like Practical Joke himself, as well as Life Is Good, Citizen Bull, Patch Adams, Tappan Street, Iron Orchard, etc.
Although there are any number of stallions from this sire-line that we could’ve chosen for Faze the Nation, we are going to go with Maximus Mischief’s first-year son Raging Torrent. We were blown away by him when we saw him in person in November — he has more scope than many from this tribe, but he is still ridiculously well-balanced with incredible power, the traits for which this sire-line is well-known.
And as a racehorse, he demonstrated the characteristics that you’d have expected also: he was a G3-placed winner at 2YO, then scored over older horses in the G2 Pat O’Brien at 3YO, which season he ended with a victory in the G1 Malibu going 7 furlongs. He returned at 4YO to go unbeaten through the G2 Godolphin Mile in Dubai, and ended his career with a victory in the stallion-making G1 Met Mile over Fierceness. That precocity and miler speed always plays extremely well in a stallion prospect, and should prove the exact complement that Faze the Nation needs to tap into the success of her half-sisters.
Not to mention how well they complement Faze the Nations’s own talents: she herself was a winner at 2YO and black-type placed at 3YO while scoring seven sprint victories through her 4YO season. Of her two foals so far to race, one was a debut winner at 2YO and black-type placed in her second start, while the other has now racked up eight wins of her own as a 3YO and 4YO, from 5-1/2 furlongs to 1-1/16 miles.
Neither of the sires of those two successful runners made as much sense for her as Raging Torrent does, so given how well those foals have done, we cannot wait to see what Faze the Nation throws from this mating!