Life in the fast lane

Photos courtesy of Breeders’ Cup | Eclipse Sportswire

SUMMER WIND EQUINE had two regally-bred Tapit colts born in 2019, but you’d be surprised to know that the subsequently undefeated Grade 1 winner Flightline wasn’t the one getting all the attention during his early life inspections.

But that’s exactly what happened.

Flightline’s breeder Summer Wind Equine has a strong relationship with Lane’s End and consigns most of its horses through the farm.

Throughout the year the crew from Lane’s End head over to inspect the foals and yearlings – not surprisingly the team paid most attention to American Pharoah’s half-brother during those inspections.

But Lane’s End’s David Ingordo always regarded the bay colt out of graded stakes winner Feathered the better horse.

Bill Farish, general manager of Lane’s End, recalls: “Jane [Lyon] had another very attractive colt there named Triple Tap, who is a half-brother to American Pharoah, so he was kind of getting all the attention.

“But David came back and said, ‘I don’t know, there’s another Tapit over there that I like even more than him’, that turned out to be Flightline.”

Ingordo was right on the button.

As a yearling the colt was offered as part of Lane’s End’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale consignment and he impressed buyers enough that he fetched the third-most expensive price – West Point Thoroughbreds going to $1 million to acquire him.

However, Summer Wind and Lane’s End decided that they did not want their involvement to end in the ring, quickly joining in the ownership group.

By the time Flightline reached the track in April of his three-year-old year, that contingent also included Hronis Racing and Siena Farm.

“We loved his pedigree, but really the main thing was his physical,” explains Farish of Lane’s End’s decision to buy into the colt.

“I don’t think he was actually at his best up at Saratoga and that was how we were able to end up with him.”

While all the connections involved with Flightline guessed he had talent, they were forced to wait for it.

In February of his two-year-old year the colt spooked and gained the infamous scar on his hindquarters after hitting a stall latch. The injury was bad enough to send him to the clinic and it took nearly three months to heal; patience is indeed a virtue with racehorses.

It wasn’t until nearly a year later that he clocked his first work and flashed the brilliance that would define his racing career.

Covering 3f in 36.40sec, he earned the bullet at Santa Anita and soon after Farish received a call from trainer John Sadler.

It was just the beginning of what was set to be an exciting 2021 for Flightline with the colt winning his first two starts by a combined 26l.

“John called soon after his first work and said, ‘My lord, this horse is really special!’ He and Juan Leyva had been talking about him since before his first work, they were pretty impressed with him even before that bullet time.

“To see him run that first race the way he did then come back in an Allowance race and run there; he has so much natural speed for a horse who is built to go two turns,” says Farish.

Before Flightline could take advantage of that two-turn build, the colt was asked to prove he could do it at shorter distances, as well. It was those races that quickly put him in the spotlight.

Given an outing on Boxing Day in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes, Flightline earned his first stakes win and his first Grade 1 victory with an 11l romp on the front end.d.

“I was in cruise control the whole race, galloping freely,” said his regular jockey Flavien Prat after the win. “He was quite impressive. I wanted to get a good position and get myself into the race. My idea was to get out there running and see what happened. He has been brilliant so far. He really has been quite amazing.”

While people eagerly awaited Flightline’s next start, they had to join his connections on the “patience train” with the colt not returning to the races until June of his fouryear-old season.

The colt wasn’t set to take an easy path for his return, however, travelling from California to New York to face three Grade 1 winners and a multiple graded stakes winner in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap.

The race was widely regarded to be his first real test, and Flightline aced it in spectacular style.

Behind Grade 1 winner Speaker’s Corner early on, Flightline tired of letting another have the lead and took off to a 6l victory. The victory proved Flightline was the real deal and left this trainer in awe.

“We’re just thrilled to have an undefeated horse, who won easy again today,” said Sadler then. “Things didn’t really go well for him early in the race. He suffered from a slow start because of the one post. Then he got cut off a little bit going down the backside. With a young horse who’s not that well-seasoned, he just overcame the adversity and proved himself best.”

Still a lightly raced horse, Flightline made his second start of the year in the Grade 1 Pacific Classic and that’s when comparisons to some of the sport’s greats started to be mentioned.

He blazed through fractions of 23.42sec and 46.06sec for the first half mile of the 1m2f race. He had the race won and stopped the clock in 1:59.28, eased near the wire for over a 19l victory.

The time was just off the track record set by Candy Ride in 2003.

After the Pacific Classic, Flightline started to be compared to other 2022 superstars such as Baaeed, but also was earning comparisons to Secretariat.

Those comparisons got even stronger with his domination of the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic in November.

The prestigious race became a match race early on when joining up with Life Is Good and the pair moved several lengths ahead of the field, Flightline pulled away from the Into Mischief colt to win the Classic by 8l, stopping the clock in 2:00.05, just off another track record.

Unsurprisingly, he lit up the horseracing world with his win, and even Sadler couldn’t help but make comparisons.

“How do you describe greatness? This is a rare horse,” he said. “It happens every 20 or 30 years. One of the best American racehorses we’ve seen in a long, long time. And I’m talking back to Secretariat, Seattle Slew.

SADLER CONTINUES to be amazed when hearing the colt mentioned in the same breath as some of the sport’s greatest runners.

“It’s so gratifying to not just think he’s great ourselves, but to hear everyone else saying it and so many people that I have a lot of respect for,” he said.

“You don’t expect that then you watch the performance in the Pacific Classic and obviously it’s awe inspiring, but it’s interesting to see that everyone has to compare him – whether it was Baaeed or Frankel or going back to Secretariat and Spectacular Bid and those great horses we’ve all been fortunate enough to watch run – and leap frogging so many horses who we all thought were very, very good.

“To be putting him above even those is incredible, but it’s deserved because the way he wins with those incredible margins it’s not surprising that he’s drawing such accolades.”

Unsurprisingly, a week after that Pacific Classic win, it was announced that Flightline would join fellow Pacific Classic winner Candy Ride on the roster at the end of his racing career.

“As soon as he ran that first race, I had it in mind,” admits Farish.

Flightline retiring to Lane’s End is a milestone with the colt a great-grandson of longtime farm stalwart A.P. Indy.

A.P. Indy died in 2020 nine years after being pensioned, but Lane’s End currently stands five stallions from his sire line with three others out of mares from the same line.

Lane’s End is known for standing multiple generations of stallions and Farish is excited to continue that tradition.

“It’s amazing to stand another stallion from the A.P. Indy sire line,” he admits.

“As a farm we kind of pride ourselves in, and have been fortunate, to stand multiple generations of certain sire lines.

“Dixieland Band, we’re into the fourth generation of that sire line and obviously A.P. Indy was a very special horse to the farm and to be able to stand a greatgrandson of his is really great.”

One thing is for sure – it’s unlikely another son of Tapit will ever be more highly regarded than this one.

The ring was packed and the televisions around the barns drew sizable crowds to watch a bidding war that ensued for what amounted to one breeding share of the undefeated Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) winner, the bidding coming to a conclusion at $4.7 million.

JUST OVER 24 hours after he was officially retired, a 2.5 per cent share of Flightline was offered at the beginning of the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale – the sale brought the sales ground and the metaverse to a halt.

It was the first offering sold through the metaverse for Keeneland and the idea had been in the works for months according to Farish.

“Our ad agency Cornett Group came to us with this metaverse idea – they wanted to come up with something to sell in the metaverse as a ‘trendy thing’ for the industry, something new and different,” explains Farish. “When you have something like that, obviously it’s important to have something that’s really going to garner attention so it popped into my head ‘Why not sell a share in Flightline?’ They were very excited about that.

“This was before the Pacific Classic so we went to Keeneland and talked to them and I hadn’t even figured out which shareholder would be willing to do this. Keeneland was also working on a metaverse concept, looking for something to do to apply the metaverse to. So, it was kind of a natural fit.”

In the end, it was West Point Thoroughbreds who offered up one of its shares in the horse, a move that paid off in spades after the horse won the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

It also worked out well forthe unnamed buyer who has decided he wants to step up his involvement in the industry.

Brookdale Farm’s Freddy Seitz, who signed as agent, said: “My client has a broodmare band and I think he is going to have a nicer broodmare band now!

For Farish, the $4.6 million was awe-inspiring, the farm had no idea how to value Flightline for a sale situation as this. He did point out that the $184 million estimation people were making on Flightline’s value likely wasn’t correct when looking at the situation.

“It’s a unique situation because the syndicate is already in place, the syndicate is a racing ownership group,” he says.

“Luckily I don’t have to go out — not that it would be hard with Flightline — and determine what a share value if I had to sell 40 shares! Selling a share like this is completely different than having to sell 40 shares, and we had clue where this would go for that reason.

“I don’t think it [the price of the share sold] has any influence on the stud fee because you’re not trying to sell 40 of these and basing it as a multiple of that. It will have some influence on the stud fee but not a huge amount.”

Flightline has arrived at Lane’s End Farm for his new career and the farm has allotted him a $200,000 fee.

The phone will be busy.