The legacy Storm Cat has left on the Triple Crown series
/By Alicia Hughes
storm cat - Keeneland Library Raftery Turfotos Collection
They hit the wire in unison beneath one of the most recognizable backdrops in all of sports, a trio of equine athletes calling upon the entirety of their pedigrees and fitness to try and claim the most career-defining of prizes. One, an industry blood blue who had sold for a seven-figure price befitting his breeding. Another, a budding international star carrying with him the aspirations of a country in addition to the 126 pounds on his back.
The one whose nose ultimately landed in front happened to be the most overlooked member of the indefatigable threesome, a colt from a seemingly modest background who produced a result most deemed an upset. The lens of hindsight can reveal many truths in the aftermath, however. And given the enduring influence of a certain stalwart in his sire line, Mystik Dan’s victory in the 2024 Kentucky Derby (Gr.1) over regally bred Sierra Leone and Japan-based Forever Young proved to be the continuation of a legacy that is still gaining strength decades after its initial impact.
In the 30 years that he graced the Thoroughbred industry with his presence, William T. Young’s homebred Grade 1 winner Storm Cat managed to put himself in the conversation as one of the all-time game-changing stallions, both in terms of his impact on the commercial marketplace and prolific output by his offspring on the track. Commanding a stud fee as high as $500,000 at his peak, the son of Storm Bird out of Terlingua twice led the general sire list, producing eight champions, 110 graded stakes winners, more than $129 million in progeny earnings, and 91 yearlings that sold for $1 million or more at public auction.
tabasco cat - storm cat’s only son to win a classic
Included in Storm Cat’s litany of top runners was Tabasco Cat - his only son to win a Triple Crown race. He won two - with the 1994 runnings of the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Then came champion Storm Flag Flying, and European champion Giant’s Causeway, the latter of whom held the mantle as his best son at stud. While he built a resume that rewrote records in the stud book, one of the few milestones missing for the dark bay stallion was the fact he never sired a horse who captured the Kentucky Derby, the 1 ¼-mile classic that stands the most famous test in Thoroughbred racing.
Despite not having one of his own wear the roses, Storm Cat’s impact on the first Saturday in May has exponentially grown in the years since his passing in 2013. When Mystik Dan won a three-horse photo beneath the Twin Spires of Churchill Downs to annex the 150th edition of the race, he became the fourth Kentucky Derby winner in the last seven years to trace their sire line to the former Overbrook Farm flagship stallion.
The trend got kicked off when Justify, by Storm Cat’s great grandson, Scat Daddy, triumphed in the 2018 Kentucky Derby en route to sweeping the Triple Crown. Since that time, much of Storm Cat’s Derby influence has been due to the overwhelming success of six-time leading sire Into Mischief, who is by Storm Cat’s grandson Harlan’s Holiday. Into Mischief himself sired back-to-back Kentucky Derby winners in Authentic (2020) and Mandaloun (2021) and is the sire of fellow Spendthrift Farm stallion Goldencents, who counts Mystik Dan as his first classic winner.
Having already hit many of the hallmarks that define truly great stallions, those who helped craft Storm Cat’s career are especially heartened by the fact that he is now definitively shaping the outcome of the race that most requires the rarified combination of stamina, speed, and mettle.
Ric Waldman
“(The Kentucky Derby influence) certainly has not been unnoticed by me, although I’m pleasantly surprised with how it has carried through,” said bloodstock consultant Ric Waldman, who managed Storm Cat's stud career for Overbrook. “I mean, that’s the real mark of a successful sire: how long can his line continue to go. When you look at the level that these sons and grandsons and great grandsons of Storm Cat have reached, you realize there is something in that Storm Cat blood. Now, how do you define it? I’ve never been able to. But it’s real. There is something in those genes that just comes through.”
When the list of Triple Crown nominees was announced for 2025, the odds of the Storm Cat line adding to its recent run of Kentucky Derby achievements could have easily been installed as the shortest price.
The two stallions represented by the highest number of offspring nominated to the classics were the aforementioned Into Mischief (21), and Taylor Made Farm stallion Not This Time (14), a son of Giant’s Causeway. As the Kentucky Derby prep season heated up, the pair indeed had their sons stamp themselves as leading contenders for the 10-furlong test with Into Mischief having juvenile champion Citizen Bull, Florida Derby (Gr.1) hero Tappan Street, and Fountain of Youth Stakes (Gr.2) victor Sovereignty while Not This Time boasted Jeff Ruby Steaks (Gr.3) winner Final Gambit and Risen Star (Gr.2) winner Magnitude, who unfortunately was knocked off the Derby trail due to injury.
Adding to the breadth and depth of the Storm Cat sire line this Triple Crown season is Justify producing Virginia Derby winner American Promise and Drefong, another great grandson of Storm Cat, having UAE Derby (G2) winner Admire Daytona (JPN).
Though his name is now synonymous with success at the highest level of Thoroughbred racing and breeding, Storm Cat had a decidedly unglamorous start to his stud career. His precocity was undisputable, having prevailed in the 1985 Young American Stakes (Gr.1) before finishing second by a nose to Tasso in that year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (Gr.1). But after just two starts during his sophomore season, injury ended his on-track career, and he entered stud at Overbrook for a $30,000 fee.
The fact he was able to make himself into an industry legend without the benefit of an elite book of mares in the first part of his stallion career was indicative of the innate quality housed beneath his coal-colored frame. Fittingly, two of the stallions who are currently pushing the sire line forward into classic territory followed virtually the same script.
“It’s in the makeup of the blood that Storm Cat made it in spite of everything else not going his way as far as establishing himself as a successful stallion,” Waldman said. “That’s the true makings of a stallion."
Not This Time
As the dark bay horse sauntered down the path from the stallion complex and paraded for breeders during Taylor Made Farm’s January stallion open house, those who were fortunate enough to see his grandsire in the flesh couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu.
not this time - jon seigel / pm advertising
From a physical standpoint, Not This Time morphs more into Storm Cat’s doppelganger with every passing year – a near carbon copy, save for having four white feet instead of two. The similarity extends well beyond the resemblance, however, as he also mirrors his grandfather in both his abbreviated career, blue-collar ascent, and versatility of runners.
not this time
Trained by Dale Romans for Albaugh Family Stables, Not This Time came into the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile as the race favorite off a scintillating triumph in the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes at Churchill Downs. Like his grandsire, he would come painfully close to victory. Where Storm Cat had a clear lead in the stretch of his Breeders’ Cup outing only to get nailed on the wire, Not This Time was the one doing the chasing over the Santa Anita Park stretch, putting in a determined rally that fell a neck short of eventual divisional champion Classic Empire.
A soft tissue injury discovered in his right front shortly after the Breeders’ Cup would end Not This Time’s career, and he commanded just $15,000 in his first initial season at stud. Though circumstances didn’t allow him to show his full racing potential, the brilliance he inherited from his sire line wasted no time showing up once his runners started hitting the track.
In 2020, he was the third-leading freshman sire by progeny earnings and by 2022, he was in the top 10 on the general sire list. That same season, his son Epicenter, who captured the Grade 1 Travers Stakes and ran second as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby, would become his first champion when he earned the Eclipse Award for champion 3-year-old male.
“We were optimistic but, in this business, you never know where the next great stallion will come from,” Ben Taylor, president of Taylor Made Stallions, said of Not This Time, who currently stands for $175,000. “But he had all the credentials, and we were just lucky to get him.
“Looking back, I remember everyone was obviously devastated when he was injured and couldn’t go on with his career. But if he didn’t have his injury, we might not have ever been in a position to get him, so their bad luck was actually maybe fortunate for us. Strictly from a financial standpoint, it was probably a windfall because it allowed him to go to stud early and achieve what he’s done at a very young age.”
Into Mischief
Twenty years after Storm Cat began his stud career in 1987, the great grandson who would ultimately topple some of his records made his career debut when he broke his maiden at Santa Anita. He would never finish worse than second and captured the Grade 1 CashCall Futurity in his third start. Ultimately, though, injury too would cut Into Mischief’s career short after just six starts, leaving owner Spendthrift Farm with the challenge of how to get enough numbers in his book when he stood his initial season for $12,500 in 2009.
into mischief
“I think we’d all be lying if we said we zeroed in and said, ‘It’s got to be this, it’s got to be that (with regards to the matings)’. Early on it was, we would take what we could get as far as mares,” said Ned Toffey, general manager of Spendthrift Farm. “But it is not uncommon for a stallion to start off with a modest book of mares both in terms of numbers and quality. Those exceptional stallions seem to prove over and over that they can overcome that, and he’s certainly done it. Even with the small books, he was doing remarkable things.”
As the annals of meteoric rises, Into Mischief is due the heftiest of chapters. In 2012, the same year his fee had dipped to $7,500, he would end up third on the freshman sire list and notch his first graded stakes winner when Goldencents took the Grade 3 Delta Jackpot that November.
In 2013, the half-brother to Hall of Famer Beholder would have a pair of Kentucky Derby starters in Goldencents and Vyjack with the former also becoming his first of what is now eight Breeders’ Cup winners when he annexed that year’s Dirt Mile. Into Mischief would begin his now six-year reign atop the general sire list in 2019 and last year became the first stallion to surpass $30 million in progeny earnings in a single season.
“I remember after Into Mischief hit with his first crop, I look back and always ask myself, ‘What did I miss?’,” Waldman said. “Is he truly a fluke that I wouldn't have caught, or did I overlook this? And in Into Mischief’s case, I missed it. But I’m not even sure Spendthrift saw he could be as good as he was, so you have to give credit to that sire line.”
With the ascent of Into Mischief and Not That Time, as well as the exploits of the late Scat Daddy, the sire line has in fact evolved from being known as primarily a speed influence into one that can inject stamina – a necessary component for 3-year-olds going the 1 ¼-miles distance in the Kentucky Derby for the first time.
Into Mischief’s ability to get top-class progeny across divisions has been well documented – from champion female sprinter Covfefe to 2024 Dubai World Cup (Gr.1) winner Laurel River. And when entries were taken for the 2024 Breeders’ Cup, Not This Time’s all-around aptitude was on full display as the 11-year-old stallion was represented by Grade 1 winning turf sprinter Cogburn and graded stakes winning marathoner, Next.
“He’s kind of done it at every level, he’s done it at any distance,” Toffey said of Into Mischief, who commands a fee of $250,000 in 2025. “He definitely leans toward being a speed sire, but he has multiple classic winners. He has demonstrated his consistency, his brilliance.”
“The versatility of a Not This Time - long, short, dirt, turf - it’s like Storm Cat himself,” added Waldman. “The Not This Times probably want to go a little farther than most of the Storm Cats did, although Giant’s Causeway clearly was a classic distance horse. As a result, you can get a horse that can run at a classic distance.”
Just as his stud career steadily gained in momentum, Storm Cat’s influence on the biggest stages shows no signs of slowing. With both Into Mischief and Not This Time having their top books of mares to date coming down the pipeline, as well as the ongoing success of the likes of Justify and Practical Joke, the days of his sire line lording over the race widely regarded as the most consequential in North America don’t figure to conclude anytime soon.
“You never get tired of seeing it, and to see it continue for this many years later…because eventually the veins should die off,” Waldman said. “We’ll see how long this goes with Storm Cat, but it is heartwarming. He helped everybody who touched his life, and everybody’s life was better for having Storm Cat.”
