Into Mischief and Not This Time were the top two sires in North America for 2025, both recording historic accomplishments. But their story doesn’t just play out over the 12 calendar months of that year. Like many bloodstock stories, their successes, establishing their own branches of a prominent sireline, stretch back over several decades and generations. And, like many stories, their sireline was touched by the late, great D. Wayne Lukas, whose influence left no avenue in the Thoroughbred world untouched, including the bloodstock realm.
Into Mischief, Spendthrift Farm’s kingpin, and Not This Time, standing at Taylor Made Farm, represent the Storm Cat sireline, and both stallions share uncanny similarities with that legendary stallion. Both did their best work on the track as 2-year-olds, and both, like Storm Cat, entered stud with modest expectations.
Into Mischief’s stud fee was as low as $7,500 in the year his first crop raced, and Not This Time entered stud for a fee of $15,000. Like Storm Cat, whose fee climbed as high as $500,000 at Overbook Farm from 2002 to 2007, both stallions now command top dollar. Into Mischief stands for $250,000 in 2026 for the fifth straight year, while Not This Time’s fee climbs to that price for the first time this season.
The foundations
This particular volume of the story could be said to begin a half century ago, in February 1976, when a chestnut fully from the second crop of Secretariat out of the speedy Crimson Saint was born in Kentucky. She was offered at the 1977 Keeneland July yearling sale, where, even before arriving on the sale grounds, she had the attention of leading Quarter Horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who was beginning to transition to Thoroughbreds. Crimson Saint had been trained by his ex-father-in-law, Rod Kaufman.
“I thought about her so many times before going to Keeneland that I knew exactly what she looked like,” Lukas told the The Blood-Horse in 1978. “I could see the cross of that large horse [Secretariat] on that mare with all that conformation for speed, and I had a picture of her in my mind.”
Lukas purchased the filly for $275,000 on behalf of Bob French, who sold an interest in her to his friend Barry Beal. They named her Terlingua, and she was so quick and strong-willed that Lukas trained her with his Quarter Horses early on. She became his first Thoroughbred stakes winner when she won the Nursery Stakes at Hollywood Park and added the Grade 2 Hollywood Lassie, Grade 2 Hollywood Juvenile Championship, and Grade 2 Del Mar Debutante that year.
Although Terlingua was unable to stretch her speed beyond a mile, she added the Grade 3 Santa Ynez and the Las Flores at 3 and the La Brea at 4 before a knee injury ended her career.
Terlingua was privately purchased as a broodmare prospect by William T. Young’s Overbrook and Dr. Bill Lockridge and Robert Hefner’s Ashford Stud. While she was carrying her second foal, to the cover of Ashford stallion Storm Bird, the farm was experiencing financial trouble and Young bought out his partner. The resulting foal, Storm Cat, was bred in his name.
Storm Cat, trained by Jonathan Sheppard, was never worse than second as a 2-year-old in Young’s colors. He scored a victory in the Grade 1 Young America Stakes at the Meadowlands and was nailed at the wire by Tasso in the 1985 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. After knee surgery that winter, he was only an allowance winner at 3 and was retired with modest expectations.
But by the time Storm Cat was pensioned in 2008 – he died in 2013 – he had led the American general sire list twice and was also a leading juvenile sire and prominent broodmare sire. In a career in which he never shuttled and an era just before book sizes for stallions exploded, he sired 1,452 foals of racing age, according to Equineline statistics, a number some stallions could surpass in about seven years. With that in mind, he sired 181 career stakes winners.
Although Lukas, the trainer most associated with close friend Young, didn’t train Storm Cat, he helped make the stallion’s career, training many of his most prominent offspring. Those included 1994 Preakness and Belmont Stakes winner Tabasco Cat, 1999 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Cat Thief, and Grade 1 winners Harlan and Hennessy.
Harlan, whose biggest win came in the Grade 1 Vosbugh in 1994, went on to sire multiple Grade 1 winner Harlan’s Holiday, the sire of Into Mischief, who was foaled in 2005 and purchased by Spendthrift as a 2-year-old.
While Lukas didn’t condition Storm Cat’s European Horse of the Year Giant’s Causeway for Coolmore, he provided a major assist when Aidan O’Brien’s colt made the trans-Atlantic trip for the 2000 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs, in which he finished second.
“He was such a help. I can’t tell you,” O’Brien said in a post-race press conference at last year’s Breeders’ Cup, after he broke Lukas’s record for Breeders’ Cup wins. “We came over here and we didn’t know anything about American racing. When we arrived with the horse, he was there. He gave us as many people we wanted. He told us everything we wanted to know about, from shoeing him to having the right shoes on him, the right way to take him to the track. He came down with his own horse and took him to the track himself for us to make sure that we got it all right.
“Every year since, he always rings and texts if we ever had a good day or even a bad day. Very special man. What can I say? We’ve been always so grateful to him. He never expected anything himself. I think everything he did was for his horses and his owners.”
Giant’s Causeway sired Not This Time, who was born in 2014 and raised at Taylor Made for the Albaugh family.
Into Mischief won the Grade 1 CashCall Futurity as a 2-year-old. He was a minor stakes winner at 3 and second in the Grade 1 Malibu before retiring to Spendthrift. Not This Time won the Grade 3 Iroquois at 2 and was second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile before a soft-tissue injury ended his career.
But both precocious runners would do their best work in their second careers.
In league with legends
Into Mischief’s progeny earned $32,543,038 at the races in 2025, according to Daily Racing Form statistics, easily outpacing Not This Time’s $24,295,208.
That marked the seventh consecutive leading North American general sire title by earnings for Into Mischief. He is the first stallion to secure that many consecutive titles since the legendary Bold Ruler from 1963 to 1969. Bold Ruler claimed an eighth title posthumously in 1973, the year his son Secretariat dominated the Triple Crown.
“That’s pretty dramatic historical context,” said Spendthrift general manager Ned Toffey.
Bold Ruler is tied with the pre-Civil War stallion Glencoe for the second-most North American sire titles of all time, trailing only the great Lexington, whose career spanned the Civil War while he rolled to an incredible 16 titles.
Into Mischief’s 2025 season was led by dual classic winner Sovereignty, a lock to be voted the Eclipse Award champion 3-year-old and also the favorite to be voted Horse of the Year. Sovereignty became Into Mischief’s third official Kentucky Derby winner, joining 2020 Horse of the Year Authentic, who won the pandemic-delayed 2020 Derby, and Mandaloun, who crossed the line second in 2021 but was later elevated to first due to Medina Spirit’s disqualification for a medication violation.
Sovereignty’s win made Into Mischief one of just five stallions with three Kentucky Derby winners, joining some all-time greats. The others in the club are Virgil, with Vagrant (1876), Hindoo (1881), and Ben Ali (1886); Falsetto, with Chant (1894), His Eminence (1901), and Sir Huon (1906); Sir Gallahad III, with Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox (1930), Gallahadion (1940), and Hoop Jr. (1945); and Bull Lea, with Triple Crown winner Citation (1948), Hill Gail (1952), and Iron Liege (1957). Fifteen other stallions have sired two Derby winners.
Into Mischief is assured of another Eclipse Award champion on the season in Spendthrift color-bearer Ted Noffey, who won three Grade 1 races in an undefeated campaign, capped by the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Into Mischief also was represented in 2025 by Grade 1 winners Patch Adams, Tappan Street, and Tommy Jo. The stallion had 27 individual stakes winners on the season, surpassing 200 for his career.
Into Mischief has sired Grade 1 winners on both turf and dirt, and going short and long. He displayed that versatility on a day at Saratoga in which his son Patch Adams won the Grade 1 Woody Stephens sprinting, shortly before Sovereignty won the Belmont Stakes at 1 1/4 miles. His grandson Raging Torrent, by Spendthrift’s Maximus Mischief, also won the Grade 1 Met Mile that day.
“That day was a pretty good microcosm of his career,” Toffey said.
Into Mischief also led North America by individual winners by a wide margin in 2025, with 222 winners from 450 individual runners. Showing his additional prowess as a sire of sires, the next two spots on that list are filled by his sons, as Spendthrift’s Goldencents sired 193 winners from 369 individual starters, and Practical Joke, standing at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud, sired 189 winners from 366 runners.
Into Mischief was also among the leaders in a number of categories on the Beyer Sire Performance Standings, Daily Racing Form’s exclusive stallion metrics. The Beyer Speed Figures made their published debut in The Racing Times in 1991 and were incorporated into DRF’s past performances in 1992, becoming an industry standard for the comparison of one horse’s performance to another and to describe the level of a horse’s effort beyond raw times and finishing positions.
The Beyer Sire Performance Standings provide totals and percentages for stallions’ progeny who surpass specific Beyer Speed Figure benchmarks in North American races. While traditional sire lists based on earnings can be slanted by one or two major stakes victories or inflated purses on some circuits, the Beyer Sire Performance Standings may be less skewed. Beyers are assigned to all runners in a race, allowing DRF’s sire lists to include all performances.
Into Mischief had the most individual progeny to record milestone Beyers of 90 or higher, with 52 runners reaching that mark, compared to 33 for Three Chimneys resident Gun Runner. Those 52 runners recorded 102 total Beyers of 90 or better, compared to 75 for Gun Runner’s offspring.
Into Mischief also edged Gun Runner by the number of individuals to record triple-digit Beyers, 11 to 10, although Gun Runner had more total figures in the range, 19 to 16. Sovereignty recorded the year’s highest Beyer when he posted a 115 in his romp in the Travers Stakes.
“The consistency’s always been there. It’s been remarkable, but now it’s consistent at the highest levels,” Toffey said.
Sovereignty and Ted Noffey join Into Mischief’s top career runners, which include Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner and Horse of the Year Authentic; Kentucky Oaks winner and champion Pretty Mischievous; Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint winners and champions Covfefe and Gamine; 2-year-old Breeders’ Cup winners and champions Citizen Bull and Wonder Wheel; two-time Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Goldencents; Life Is Good, whose multiple Grade 1 wins included the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and Pegasus World Cup; and Dubai World Cup winner Laurel River.
The rising star
While Into Mischief continued to reign on the general sire list, runner-up Not This Time led two other prominent sire lists in North America for 2025 and appears to be on an upward trajectory.
Not This Time edged Into Mischief by individual stakes winners on the season, 30 to 27. As a younger horse who entered stud eight years after Into Mischief, Not This Time had fewer runners on the season, with 295 individuals to 450, accounting for some of the earnings discrepancy. He recorded a winners-from-runners percentage of 55 percent, compared to 49 percent from Into Mischief.
Nearly a third of Not This Time’s stakes winners came from his 2-year-old crop, as he edged Into Mischief on the 2-year-old sire list by earnings, $5,555,421 to $5,500,015. Not This Time had 40 2-year-old winners in 2025, with nine stakes winners led by Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint winner and Eclipse Award finalist Cy Fair. Into Mischief had 35 juvenile winners, with his six stakes winners led by Ted Noffey and Tommy Jo.
Not This Time’s success on the 2-year-old sire list is particularly significant, as he is poised to keep moving forward with better-bred crops in the future.
“It’s just crazy,” Frank Taylor of Taylor Made said. “I’ve never seen a horse any hotter than this one. He’s unbelievable. And the thing about it is, all these horses are running on the stud fees from $45,000 and down, and now he’s got all these good horses coming, so it should just get better.
“To raise a horse like that and then get to stand him, it’s the pinnacle of success. It’s a blessing beyond blessings. He’s just a special horse – they come around once in five lifetimes.”
Not This Time also led the turf sires list over another older stallion, Lane’s End’s Twirling Candy, with earnings of $12,730,046 to $10,078,435; individual winners, 62 to 53; and stakes winners, 17 to 7. The two of them tied on the Beyer Sire Performance Standings for the most individuals to record Beyers of 90 or above on turf, with 12 runners each.
Not This Time had the distinction of sweeping the trifecta in a graded stakes race on the Keeneland turf in October – and then repeating the feat later in the meet. His 2-year-old daughters Imaginationthelady, Infinite Sky, and Time to Dream led the way in the Grade 2 Jessamine. Later in the meet, Troubleshooting held off Tenacious Leader in the Grade 3 Bryan Station, leading home what was, in fact, the superfecta with Giocoso and Dream On finishing third and fourth.
Out of more than 12,000 graded stakes contested in North America over the past quarter-century, only four other stallions have swept the trifecta at that level, and Not This Time is the only stallion to accomplish the feat twice in that span. The others are Kris S. in 2001’s Grade 3 Lawrence Realization (Sharp Performance, Tiger Trap, Whitmore’s Conn); Dynaformer in 2009’s Grade 2 Sands Point (Gozzip Girl, Warm Shower, Bluegrass Princess); Powerscourt in 2015’s Grade 2 San Marcos (Finnegan’s Wake, Power Ped, Power Foot); and Curlin in 2020’s Grade 2 Demoiselle (Malathaat, Millefeuille, Malibu Curl).
While Cy Fair and Not This Time’s Keeneland turf standouts, including Grade 1 Coolmore Turf Mile winner Rhetorical, made headlines, Not This Time has ably demonstrated his versatility. He got another Grade 1 in the waning days of 2025, when Goal Oriented won the Malibu on dirt. Not This Time has demonstrated his versatility with Eclipse Award champions Epicenter on dirt and Up to the Mark on turf.
In 2024, his best-known runners were the crack turf sprinter Cogburn and the dirt marathon specialist Next.
“He’s so versatile. They can run on turf, dirt, long, short, old, young – it doesn’t make any difference,” Taylor said.
Looking forward
The table seems to be set for both Into Mischief and Not This Time to continue a run of success into 2026.
Into Mischief will have Ted Noffey eyeing the Florida route to the Kentucky Derby, while Sovereignty shipped to Florida in earning January to begin training for his highly anticipated 4-year-old campaign. And while Not This Time’s nation-leading group of 2-year-olds has turned 3, he will also have a number of standouts returning as older horses this season, including the exciting Magnitude, who worked his way back from an early-season injury to capture the Grade 2 Clark in November.
Waiting in the wings are the 2026 2-year-old crops for both stallions, who had strong yearling sales results last year. Into Mischief sired the season’s most expensive yearling, a $4.1 million colt purchased by Coolmore and White Birch at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected sale.
Not This Time led the Keeneland September yearling sale by gross, with 14 seven-figure horses, and finished second to Gun Runner by average price. Those yearlings were Not This Time’s first conceived on a six-figure stud fee, as his price jumped from $45,000 in 2022 to $135,000 in 2023, suggesting he is poised for another stellar season with his juveniles in 2026.
Both Into Mischief and Not This Time should continue to add to their reputations with their sons at stud. Into Mischief is already represented by the likes of classic sire Goldencents and the very successful Practical Joke, as well as useful stallions Audible (WinStar Farm) – sire of 2025 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint winner Splendora – Authentic (Spendthrift), Honest Mischief (Sequel Stallions), Instagrand (Taylor Made), and Maximus Mischief (Spendthrift).
“I think he’s very clearly ticked the box for being a sire of sires,” Toffey said.
Into Mischief will have three sons with their first runners this year in Highly Motivated (Airdrie Stud), Life Is Good (WinStar), and Mandaloun (Juddmonte). He also has three prominent sons entering stud in Kentucky in 2026, with champion Citizen Bull (Ashford), Grade 1 winner Patch Adams (WinStar), and graded stakes winner Barnes (Hill ‘n’ Dale).
Different branches of the family tree also continue to develop. Practical Joke’s well-regarded Grade 1 winner Domestic Product (Ashford) will have his first foals this year, and Goldencents’s Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan (Airdrie) and Maximus Mischief’s Met Mile winner Raging Torrent (Lane’s End) enter stud this season.
Not This Time will be represented by his first son with runners in this year’s freshman sire class with champion Epicenter (Ashford). Not This Time’s eight sons at stud include champion Up to the Mark (Lane’s End), who will be represented with his first yearlings this year; Cogburn (WinStar), whose first foals are arriving now; and Goal Oriented (Spendthrift), retired after the Malibu.
Perhaps in another half-century, stories will be written about Into Mischief and Not This Time’s long list of major runners and sons at stud, ensuring the pair a place alongside legends like Storm Cat.