COLUMN 46 ADIYAT RACING PLUS ISSUE 840 Thursday 4th April 2024 adiyat racing plus.com adiyat racing plus.com The path that eventually led Juddmonte Farms’ Laurel River to his explosive, record-setting Dubai World Cup victory actually began to take shape more than two decades ago. It was a tense time in March 2003 as, not so far away from Dubai, the Iraq War had just flared. While that conflict raged in full colour across television screens, hesitation grew among international horsemen about whether or not to send their runners for the Dubai World Cup program. Among those who eventually made the trip was the rather blocky 16-hand colt named Harlan’s Holiday, a grandson of Storm Cat who already was a three-time Grade 1 winner in America. While he would prove no match for Godolphin’s runaway winner Moon Ballad, Harlan’s Holiday finished a game second in the Dubai World Cup, helping to ensure that he would have a chance at stud. On that Dubai night, his trainer, Todd Pletcher, couldn’t help beaming as he walked across the Nad Al Sheba parade ring after the race had been run. The $1.2 million paycheck Harlan’s Holiday earned for second was the largest of Pletcher’s Hall of Fame career at that point, he noted. The following spring, in his first season at stud, Harlan’s Holiday sired a bay colt made very much like himself from the mare Leslie’s Lady, later honored as America’s 2016 Broodmare of the Year. That colt would turn into juvenile Grade 1 winner Into Mischief, who tried but could not replicate such racing success at three, although his half-sister, champion Beholder, and half-brother, UAE Derby victor Mendelssohn, were more successful. American breeders were initially shy about sending mares to Into Mischief after he retired to Spendthrift Farm, but a special program called Share the Upside developed by the farm’s late owner, B. Wayne Hughes, lured them with the promise of lasting investment returns. Into Mischief has now reigned over North America’s leading sire list since 2019. His early reputation as a sire of sprinter/ milers has evolved into that of a sire that can get a horse like 2020 American Horse of the Year Authentic, winner of — KING OF THE WORLD: INTO MISCHIEF SHINES IN DUBAI MICHELE MACDONALD Into Mischief
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