By B. Jason Brooks
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Phipps Stable’s homebred Mystifying is making her third career start and first on the turf in Race 11 on Monday, September 2nd, the closing day of the Saratoga meet.
The lightly-raced Curlin filly had shin trouble last year, postponing her debut until January of this year.
Making her first start a winning one over six furlongs on the dirt at Gulfstream Park, she dueled inside a pair of foes while racing in the two-path before kicking clear in the upper stretch and digging in to repel a late challenge for a half-length victory.
In a February interview (here) with Horse Racing Nation’s managing editor Ron Flatter, Mystifying’s Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey stated, “I’d like to have the opportunity coming off that three-quarter [of a mile] race to have a little bit of time in between to let her get over that. We’ll try to come back a little bit farther.”
She returned in mid-March among allowance company over seven furlongs on the dirt at Gulfstream, driving four wide in the turn and weakening in the stretch to finish seventh.
Following the March effort, she went two months without any timed breezes before clocked workouts resumed in mid-May at Niall Brennan Stables in Ocala. Since then, she has put in a steady series of near-weekly workouts, returning to Mr. McGaughey’s barn at Belmont in June and at Saratoga for the current meet. (See her four-furlong August 25th breeze over the turf with stablemate Statesman, a juvenile colt by Constitution, on XBTV here.)
Ending a 170-day layoff, Mystifying will have jockey Tyler Gaffalione aboard, breaking from post No. 5 in a field of a dozen for the mile-and-a-sixteenth allowance race for fillies and mares of ages three years and older. Post time is 6:17 pm Eastern.
She enters the race with 10-to-1 morning-line odds. In his TimeformUS Race Analysis (here), David Aragona notes that Mystifying “has plenty of Phipps turf pedigree in her female family, and has also worked well on the surface ahead of this start. Shug McGaughey also has strong statistics coming off layoffs in turf routes.”
Mystifying is the sixth foal out of stakes-placed Ghostzapper mare Puzzling, with all of them being winners. Puzzling’s seventh foal, a 2022 Street Sense colt named Cipher, was purchased by Centennial Farms for $500,000 from the Claiborne Farm consignment at the 2023 Keeneland September yearling sale and is in training.
A sixth-generation Phipps homebred, Mystifying hails from the elite female family tracing back to blue-hen mares Blitey, by Riva Ridge, and Lady Pitt, by Sword Dancer, the latter being the 1966 champion 3-year-old filly acquired privately in 1969 from Golden Triangle Stable by Ogden Phipps.
Lady Pitt’s descendants include 2022 Horse of the Year Flightline, by Tapit, grade 1-winning sires Oscar Performance, by Kitten’s Joy, and Instilled Regard, by Arch, grade 1 American Oaks winner Queen Goddess, by Empire Maker (who sold for $1.525 million at the 2022 Fasig November Sale), and nine grade 1-winning Phipps homebreds, including Hall of Famer Heavenly Prize, by Phipps sire Seeking the Gold, as well as Dancing Forever, by Rahy, Dancing Spree, by Nijinsky II, Fantastic Find, by Mr. Prospector, Finder’s Fee, by Storm Cat, Furlough, by Phipps sire Easy Goer, Good Reward, by Storm Cat, Oh What A Windfall, also by Seeking the Gold, and Persistently, by Smoke Glacken.
Photo: Mystifying at Saratoga, July 2024, courtesy of Daisy Phipps Pulito
Phipps Stable Fan 