TWO strong Kentucky Derby contenders emerged last weekend, Tappan Street (Into Mischief) and Sandman (Tapit), winning the Grade 1 Florida Derby and Grade 1 Arkansas Derby respectively. Both Kentucky-bred colts are out of mares by Distorted Humor (Forty Niner).

A multiple stakes winner of eight races from 23 starts, and the seven-furlong stakes record holder at Keeneland, Distorted Humor shuttled twice to Australia, but spent the rest of his career in the USA, and was instrumental in assisting WinStar to become a major player in the bloodstock world. He enjoyed plenty of success, becoming the leading sire in 2011, and a few years later being crowned leading broodmare sire. His championship year as a stallion was due in the main to the exploits of his Grade 1 Belmont Stakes winner Drosselmeyer.

Distorted Humor was no one horse wonder though, and among the list of household names he sired were Grade 1 winners Funny Cide who won both the Kentucky Derby and the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes, Commentator, Any Given Saturday and Flower Alley. As a broodmare sire Distorted Humor appears as the damsire of such stars as Arrogate, Golden Sixty, the trio of Life Is Good, last year’s champion juvenile Citizen Bull and Practical Joke (all by Into Mischief), and dual Grade 1 winner Constitution who is a son of Tapit.

Blue Heaven

Bred by Blue Heaven Farm, Tappan Street sold as a yearling for $1 million, and WinStar is among the partnership who race him. Blue Heaven Farm was founded 21 years ago as a racing and breeding entity by Bonnie Baskin, and she then acquired her own farm in 2010. A decade later Adam Cornduff became co-owner and is the farm’s president and general manager.

Blue Heaven has enjoyed much success over the intervening period.

In 2023, Blue Heaven sold its first seven-figure yearling, now the Grade 1 winner Tappan Street, and his dam Virginia Key (Distorted Humor) was also a homebred, winning twice in four starts at three and being placed in a Grade 2 at Aqueduct. Virginia Key did even better last year at the sales when her yearling son of Curlin (Smart Strike) realised $1.4 million to Bradley Thoroughbreds.

For good measure, the farm received $975,000 for a Gun Runner (Candy Ride) yearling filly out of Virgina Key’s dam, the Grade 3 winner Our Khrysty (Newfoundland).

The family of Tappan Street is really on a roll at present. Last year his half-sister Distorted D’Oro (Medaglia D’Oro), a $235,000 yearling and $325,000 breezer, was stakes-placed and is now a three-time winner. She could yet become a stakes winner. Last year Virginia Key foaled a filly by Quality Road (Elusive Quality) and was covered by Cody’s Wish (Curlin).

Grace Adler

Virginia Key’s half-sister Grace Adler (Curlin) won the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante Stakes in 2021, and the following year sold for $2 million. Their half-brother Pyrenees (Into Mischief) was knocking on the door of a Grade 1 victory in 2024, finishing second in both the Stephen Foster Stakes and Jockey Club Gold Cup, but did gain some compensation when landing the historic Grade 3 Pimlico Special.

Another of Virginia Key’s siblings is Bay Harbor (Speightstown), and she has made a great start to her career as a broodmare, having placed in Canada while racing. Her first foal is Miuccia (Mitole) who was a stakes winner last year as a three-year-old at Gulfstream Park, and was graded-stakes placed.

As good as Our Khrysty was to breed two stakes winners, one at Grade 1 level, she lagged behind the achievements of the next dam, The Hess Express (Lord Carson).

Successful five times on the track, The Hess Express was placed in a couple of minor stakes, but four of her nine winning offspring were successful in stakes races. Her Grade 1 winner was Bullsbay (Tiznow), and his biggest achievement was to land the Grade 1 Whitney Handicap at Saratoga, a great performance given that he did not capture the first of his seven victories until he was four.

Tappan Street won the Florida Derby from another son of Into Mischief, Sovereignty, and this on just his third start. He won his sole start at two, was runner-up in the Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes on his sophomore debut, and now is one of the Kentucky Derby favourites after the weekend. His win brought Into Mischief’s tally of graded stakes winners to 83, and 23 of them achieved the feat in Grade 1 races.

Sandman

Grade 3 winner She Can’t Sing (Bernardini) sold for $1.1 million in February 2024 at Fasig-Tipton to Hill ‘n’ Dale at Xalapa as a broodmare prospect. She was an eight-time winner, successful in a Grade 3 at Churchill Downs, and the first winner for her dam Distorted Music (Distorted Humor), winner herself three times.

That purchase price looks value already, as Distorted Music’s second winner is Sandman, and he showed signs of ability at two when he placed at Grade 3 level, winning twice. Placed a couple of times earlier this year and again at graded-stakes level, he is now a Grade 1 winner after landing the Arkansas Derby. This latest win means that he has now won $54,595 more than his $1.2 million sale price as a two-year-old at Ocala.

This was the 33rd Grade 1 winner for Tapit (Pulpit), nearly one-third of his 107 graded-stakes winners. Sandman’s biggest success will have brought smiles to a number of different people, in addition to connections, and they include M.V. Magnier, Peter Brant and the Irish owners of Springhouse Farm in Kentucky. Magnier and Brant combined last year to purchase Sandman’s yearling half-brother by Into Mischief for $1 million, a daring pinhook as the colt sold as a short yearling for $650,000.

Gabriel Duignan

Springhouse Farm is owned by Gabriel ‘Spider’ Duignan and his wife Aisling (née Cross), and they purchased Distorted Music from the Lothenbach Stakes dispersal in February 2024 for $375,000.

Given that her daughter She Can’t Sing brought more than a million dollars at the same sale, Distorted Music was still something of a gamble buy for Duignan. The mare’s nine years at stud saw her produce five living foals, and she was not in foal, having aborted, when sold.

Apart from that, Distorted Music offered a lot. Her siblings include the Grade 3 runner-up Zinzay (Smart Strike), and she is the dam of the Listed Duelling Grounds Derby winner and Grade 1 Man O’War Stakes third Moon Over Miami (Malibu Moon). Distorted Music’s twice-raced full-sister Funny Song (Distorted Humor) may have shown little on the track, but her first offspring is Whiskey Decision (Into Mischief), a stakes winner at three last year in the USA.

The third and fourth removes of Sandman’s family are full of class. The third dam Note Musicale (Sadler’s Wells) bred five-time Grade 1 winner Music Note (A P Indy) and the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas heroine Musical Chimes (In Excess), and is grandam of the 2021 Group 1 Dubai World Cup winner Mystic Guide (Ghostzapper).

There is no shortage of well-known performers under the fourth dam, and that mare herself was a champion. It’s In The Air won 16 races, five at Grade 1 level, and as a juvenile was voted the best filly in the USA. A trio of her daughters won stakes races in three different countries, the USA, France and England, while her grandson Storming Home (Machiavellian), twice a Grade 1 winner in the USA, was successful in the Group 1 Champion Stakes at Newmarket. Another familiar name on the page is that of Rathbarry Stud sire State Of Rest (Starspangledbanner).