Into Mischief Colt Has Swale On 'To Doo' List

Lael Stables' Gretchen Jackson has spent a lot of time in racing, so it takes something way out of the ordinary for her to have a new experience. She got one she probably would've preferred not to have Oct. 27 at Laurel, but it was one that showed her and trainer Arnaud Delacour that they might have a special runner on their hands.

Tricks to Doo (Into Mischief), a $600,000 OBS March buy after breezing a furlong in :9 4/5, finished third on debut in a live maiden race 20 days earlier at Keeneland, and was accordingly dispatched as the 1-10 favorite against softer company at Laurel. A little over a sixteenth of a mile into the running, his backers, along with Jackson, Delacour and especially rider Feargal Lynch, got more than they bargained for when the horse's left rein suddenly broke.

“We've had all sorts of things happen, but we've never had that,” Jackson said. “I was only watching on TV, I wasn't there, so we saw something flapping and wondered what it was. In seeing it again, we realized that Feargal had grabbed onto the mane of the horse. I'm sure it took a lot of guts to stay on that horse. He had to be scared to death.”

Composing himself, Lynch urged Tricks to Doo to overhaul a longshot pacesetter nearing the stretch and gave him a few pops of his right-handed whip en route to an improbable and powerful 5 3/4-length score. While it certainly was a valiant effort from the jockey, it also said a lot about the horse and Delacour's training job that Lynch was able to steer him home without further issue.

“That was stressful, but he showed some class,” Delacour reflected. “He did the right things and he's a horse with class for sure.”

That class, along with his obvious talent, was confirmed when Tricks to Doo returned to romp by 7 1/4 lengths in Tampa's Inaugural S. Dec. 16. Those qualities will be further tested when he makes his graded stakes debut and first start beyond six furlongs against five rivals in the seven-panel GIII Swale S. Saturday at Gulfstream.

“He's improved and matured and he's ready to move up the ladder,” Jackson said. “We only will know how talented he is by doing it, so it's the first test at another level and we're anxious to see if he can do it or not.”

“The logical spot would have been to go seven furlongs and in order to do that, we had the Swale or the Pasco [S.] at Tampa,” Delacour added. “I thought after what he showed in the [Inaugural], we'd see if we could run him in a graded stake.”

The main hurdle for Tricks to Doo in the Swale will almost certainly be Courtlandt Farms' homebred Strike Power (Speightstown). Debuting at Gulfstream Dec. 23, the chestnut showed abundant pace and never looked back, graduating by eight lengths to earn 'TDN Rising Star' status along with a 102 Beyer, the second-fastest figure by a 2-year-old in 2017.

“He's obviously a pretty impressive horse who liked the track at Gulfstream and trains there, so there's no question mark about it for him,” Delacour said. “We've never run at Gulfstream, but at this stage with 3-year-olds, they can move forward or move backward very easily, so I'm just excited to be able to test him a little bit and see if we belong with those kinds of horses.”

Tricks to Doo's speed has been a weapon, but it's also the reason Delacour has decided to keep the colt at sprint distances through his first four starts.

“He's very forward in his training and he actually has a tendency to do a little too much in the morning,” the French-born conditioner said. “I can either breeze him alone or behind a horse, but head-to-head, he wants to do a little bit too much. We've been trying to–not slow him down because I still think his speed is his best asset–but just to get him to relax a little bit.”

If he delivers another promising run in the Swale, however, the temptations would be great to see how far Tricks to Doo can go as the road to the GI Kentucky Derby ramps up. Delacour is not yet convinced that his quick pupil will be a router, but he's ready for that contingency should he see indications of untapped stamina Saturday.

“It depends how he does and the way he does it.” Delacour said. “If it looks like he could go a little bit further, we might try him two turns and the [Mar. 10 GII] Tampa Bay Derby could be an option for that. The timing is pretty good if we want to do so, but he needs to show that he wants to go a little bit further and at the moment, I'm not quite sure, because he does show a lot of speed in his workouts and in his races obviously. So [the Swale] is going to be a test and a good way to find out where to go next.”