'What's not to like?' - positive reaction for Tiz The Law as stud career begins

While the launch of his stud career was not ideal, coming suddenly at the turn of the year following the key November sale season when breeders scurry to select mates for their mares, four-time Grade 1 winner Tiz The Law has made up for any early disadvantage just as he typically did on the racetrack.

Even though he has been mostly confined to stall rest at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud near Lexington due to the bone bruising that precipitated his retirement, Tiz The Law has impressed visitors who have inspected the four-year-old from the first crop of Tapit’s hot young son Constitution.

“The reaction to him has been very positive,” said Coolmore’s Adrian Wallace of the bay with the unmistakable wide blaze. “But what’s not to like?

“In a very dark last year due to Covid, Tiz The Law captured our imagination in racing. He seemed to be a horse that, no matter the course or distance, made it happen."

A Grade 1 winner of the prestigious Champagne Stakes at two who developed into the early favourite for the Kentucky Derby off his authoritative Florida Derby victory, Tiz The Law did not benefit from the reshuffling of race schedules during Covid-clouded 2020.

The Sackatoga Stable colourbearer would have been “bang-up to going very close in the Kentucky Derby, if not winning it, had it been run in May,” Wallace said, noting the colt was the standout in his age group at the time.

With the three-year-old Classic season scrambled, Tiz The Law proceeded to win the Belmont Stakes, reduced in distance from its usual mile and a half to a mile and an eighth, on June 20.

Tiz The Law and Manny Franco romp away with the Belmont StakesCredit: Al Bello (Getty Images)

Less than two months later he returned to notch another elite victory in the mile and a quarter Travers Stakes, rallying in his usual style from off the pace.

In his penultimate start, Tiz The Law chased likely American Horse of the Year Authentic down the stretch at Churchill Downs, finishing second by one and a quarter lengths to that rival in the Kentucky Derby run on September 5.

He was subsequently unplaced in Authentic’s Breeders’ Cup Classic after fighting jockey Manny Franco while being restrained on the inside during the early stages. Yet his high-class season gained Tiz The Law standing as a finalist for the Eclipse Award as America’s champion three-year-old male.

When Coolmore announced last summer that it had acquired the rights to stand the colt, Sackatoga partners envisioned that he would first continue to race as a four-year-old this year.

However, rather than competing as originally planned in last weekend’s $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes, for which he likely would have been favourite, Tiz The Law was parading for breeders at Ashford and being advertised on the race telecast.

“He has everything one looks for in a stallion prospect,” Coolmore America manager Dermot Ryan has said. “He’s a Grade 1-winning juvenile and a Classic winner. Combined with his near-perfect race record, he’s very good looking and is a very well-bred individual.”

Bred by Twin Creeks Farm in New York and sold for $110,000 as a yearling to Sackatoga, Tiz The Law won six of nine starts and placed twice while earning $2,735,300 under the care of trainer Barclay Tagg.

The colt was produced by the late Grade 2-winning Tiznow mare Tizfiz, who had been bred back to Constitution in 2019 but died that summer following colic surgery.

A full-sister to Grade 1-placed and Graded winner Fury Kapcori, Tizfiz had earlier delivered multiple stakes-placed filly Awestruck to the cover of Tapit.

Tiz The Law’s fourth dam is the Medieval Man mare Evil Elaine, who produced champion Favorite Trick, one of the rare juveniles to earn honours as America’s Horse of the Year, which he did in 1997.

Evil Elaine also produced the Unbridled’s Song filly Unenchantedevening, who became the dam of Grade 1 winner Moonshine Memories. Unenchantedevening is a member of the broodmare band at Jane Lyon’s Summer Wind Farm and is a currently in foal to Triple Crown winner Justify.

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