Life is Good Never Looks Back in Dominant Dirt Mile Performance

In what might have been the easiest of victories on Saturday's championship card–or maybe he's just so good he simply made it look that way–'TDN Rising Star' and 3-5 favorite Life Is Good (Into Mischief) captured the GI Big Ass Fans Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. The bay led every step of the way through blazing fractions straight into the winner's circle, with his only loss in six career starts a neck in arrears of GI Sprint favorite Jackie's Warrior (Maclean's Music).

Silver State (Hard Spun), the GI Hill 'n' Dale Met Mile hero who figured to be one the biggest nemesis for Life Is Good in the Dirt Mile, stumbled leaving the gate. Restrainedvengence (Hold Me Back) didn't break cleanly either, tossing his head and hesitating ever so briefly, but Life Is Good sailed out of his stall smoothly. Sandwiched early between Japanese runners Pingxiang (Speightstown) and Jasper Prince (Violence), he cleared the field into the first turn, blazing through splits of :21.88, :44.94, and 1:08.76. All the while, Life Is Good looked to be doing it easy with rider Irad Ortiz, Jr. sitting almost motionless. Horse for the course Ginobili (Munnings) chased him on the turn, but Life Is Good was just too good. Ortiz shook him up slightly, throwing a few crosses and shaking the whip at him before keeping his mind on business with one right-handed tap of the crop, and the pair coasted under the wire as much-the-best 5 3/4-length victors. They covered the two-turn mile in 1:34.12. Ginobili and Restrainedvengence rounded out the trifecta.

“I had a perfect trip,” said Ortiz, Jr. “He broke out of there running, he relaxed for me. I wasn't worried about those other runners early in the race, because I knew he was so fast. When we got to the quarter pole, he re-broke for me. What a nice horse to ride.”

Life Is Good's Dirt Mile was the 14th Breeders' Cup win for Ortiz and the 12th for Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher. Both had previously won the Dirt Mile, Ortiz in 2019 with Spun to Run (Hard Spun) and Pletcher with Liam's Map (Unbridled's Song) in 2015.

“We were hoping for that, expecting that based on the way that he's been training, but it's always great to see it actually happen,” said Pletcher. “He took it to them. Just too much horse.”

Continued Pletcher, “We were anticipating a good performance or an exceptional performance, just it's rare that you have a horse train as well as this horse does and breeze as impressively as he does and do everything as effortlessly and easily as he is capable of. So we were hoping for a big effort. We felt like he was sitting on a big effort and then you just hope everything goes smoothly with the ship and settling in in new surroundings and get a clean break and all the classic things that you need to go right for him to show his talent.”

Life Is Good has necessitated patience throughout his career, but how beautifully it has paid off for his connections. The 3-year-old–the only sophomore in the Dirt Mile field–debuted Nov. 22 over this track last year for trainer Bob Baffert shortly after the barn's GI Breeders' Cup Classic winner and eventual Horse of the Year Authentic (Into Mischief) was retired to stud. Life Is Good quickly stepped in with the expectation of filling Authentic's shoes, crushing his debut 6 1/2-furlong maiden special weight field by 9 1/2 lengths, earning his 'Rising Star' designation, and quickly setting tongues wagging regarding his GI Kentucky Derby chances. His next two starts, the Jan. 2 GIII Sham S. and the Mar. 6 GII San Felipe S., with 101 and 107 Beyers, respectively, did nothing to discourage the Derby talk. Before the last round of major preps, he was tied on the Derby leaderboard with 60 qualifying points and had beaten then-stablemate and eventual Derby first-place finisher Medina Spirit (Protonico) in both the Sham and San Felipe. Life was good in the Life Is Good camp.

Then, as has been well documented, much went awry. Life Is Good came out of a 1:11 2/5 six-panel work (1/6) at Santa Anita Mar. 20 with a slight injury to a hind leg. Baffert declared him off the Derby trail and said he'd get at least 60 days off while undergoing a medical evaluation. An ankle chip was discovered and surgery to remove it followed. Baffert won the Derby with Medina Spirit only to be on the brink of losing it due to a betamethasone positive. A slew of racetrack bans for Baffert followed. Life Is Good returned to the races just over five months after that Santa Anita work, but not to Baffert's barn.

When Life Is Good returned to the entry box, it was for Pletcher, this time on the East Coast. Pletcher knew what he had in Life Is Good and brought the then-unbeaten colt back in an extremely ambitious spot few others would have dared to enter off such a layoff, the Aug. 28 GI H. Allen Jerkens S. at Saratoga. In an extremely game effort, Life Is Good got run down by a neck to Jackie's Warrior (Maclean's Music) in what remains his only career defeat. The Sept. 25 GII Kelso H. at the same distance as the Dirt Mile followed with Life Is Good running like the 1-20 choice he was, giving the impression of a public workout or at least a Sunday stroll.

“He's one of [the] classic rare horses that you could consider three different races on the card,” said Pletcher after the Dirt Mile. “Who knows, he might even grass on top of that. But he's just, he's super fast, but what we have seen from him in his training is he has the ability to go fast and keep going and I think that's what everyone was able to see today.”

WinStar president and CEO Elliott Walden, representing co-owners WinStar and CHC Inc., indicated after the race that Life Is Good is expected to have a 2022 campaign.

Pedigree Notes:
In what is becoming a familiar refrain, Spendthrift Farm's super-sire Into Mischief is the sire of the winner. Life Is Good's Dirt Mile is the sixth Breeders' Cup win for the son of Harlan's Holiday, follwing Goldencents in back-to-back Dirt Miles in 2013-14, Covfefe in the 2019 Filly & Mare Sprint, Gamine in the 2020 Filly & Mare Sprint, and Authentic in last year's Classic. Breeders' Cup success aside, from 10 crops of racing age, Into Mischief has 102 Northern Hemisphere-bred black-type winners, 44 of which are graded winners.

Recently pensioned Distorted Humor is the broodmare sire of Life Is Good, with black-type winners out of his daughters numbering 115. When his daughters have been matched with Into Mischief, they've come up with not only Life Is Good, but also MGISW and current third-leading freshman sire Practical Joke, 2021 MGSW Fulsome, and three other stakes winners.

Life Is Good, who was a $525,000 Keeneland September yearling, is Beach Walk's second foal. Her yearling filly is by Blame, her 2021 colt is by Candy Ride (Arg), and she was bred back to Into Mischief. Her dam is SW Bonnie Blue Flag (Mineshaft), who placed in both the 2010 GI Test S. and GI Prioress S. Bonnie Blue Flag is a half to MGISW Diamondrella (GB) (Rock of Gibraltar {Ire}). She sold at the 2011 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky sale for $1.5 million, but reappeared at the 2019 Keeneland November sale for just $15,000.

Saturday, Del Mar
BIG ASS FANS BREEDERS' CUP DIRT MILE-GI, $900,000, Del Mar, 11-6, 3yo/up, 1m, 1:34.12, ft.
1–LIFE IS GOOD, 123, c, 3, by Into Mischief
1st Dam: Beach Walk, by Distorted Humor
2nd Dam: Bonnie Blue Flag, by Mineshaft
3rd Dam: Tap Your Feet, by Dixieland Band
1ST GRADE I WIN. ($525,000 Ylg '19 KEESEP). O-CHC Inc. and
WinStar Farm LLC; B-Gary & Mary West Stables Inc. (KY);
T-Todd A. Pletcher; J-Irad Ortiz, Jr. $520,000. Lifetime Record:
6-5-1-0, $1,059,200. Werk Nick Rating: A+++ *Triple Plus*.
Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree.
2–Ginobili, 126, g, 4, Munnings–Find the Humor, by Sharp
Humor. ($35,000 Ylg '18 KEESEP). O-Slam Dunk Racing, Richard
Baltas, Jerry McClanahan and Michael Nentwig; B-Hinkle
Farms (KY); T-Richard Baltas. $170,000.
3–Restrainedvengence, 126, g, 6, Hold Me Back–
Cupids Revenge, by Red Ransom. ($67,000 Ylg '16 KEESEP).
O-Kelly Brinkerhoff and Bob Grayson, Jr.; B-Westwind Farms
(KY); T-Val Brinkerhoff. $90,000.
Margins: 5 3/4, 3/4, NK. Odds: 0.70, 4.40, 40.60.
Also Ran: Eight Rings, Silver State, Snapper Sinclair, Pingxiang, Jasper Prince.
Click for the Equibase.com chart, the TJCIS.com PPs or the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree. VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.