Mandaloun already holds a place in racing history after being promoted to victory in the 2021 Kentucky Derby. He will now look to build a legacy for a storied international Thoroughbred operation. Mandaloun, by leading sire and emerging sire of sires Into Mischief, retires to Juddmonte Farm in Nicholasville, Ky., for the 2023 season. He is the first horse to move into Juddmonte’s Kentucky stallion barn in about six years, since champion Arrogate arrived there in fall 2017. Juddmonte has been selective about standing its own runners under its own banner in recent years, but Mandaloun’s unique accomplishments fit the bill. “Mandaloun is a true Juddmonte stallion,” said Garrett O’Rourke, manager of Juddmonte’s U.S. operations. “He is a gorgeous horse who should offer breeders exceptional value when the time comes to sell their yearlings. We plan to support him in the same manner we did with the likes of Empire Maker and Arrogate.” Mandaloun is a homebred for the Juddmonte operation founded by the late Prince Khalid bin Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who died in January 2021, before Mandaloun’s best accomplishments on the racetrack. O’Rourke described Juddmonte’s operations in the United States as “business as usual” following the founder’s death, with no major bloodstock moves and his sons and grandsons taking an interest in the business. Mandaloun, trained throughout his career by Brad Cox, won both his outings as a 2-year-old, then finished third in the Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes and won the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes early in his 3-year-old season. He was a puzzling sixth in the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby, but rebounded to cross the wire second in the Kentucky Derby, bested a half-length by the late Medina Spirit. A little more than a week after the race, it was revealed that Medina Spirit had tested positive for betamethasone, a legal medication that is not permitted on race day in Kentucky. On Feb. 21, 2022, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission announced that Medina Spirit had been disqualified from the Derby win, with Mandaloun elevated to the victory. The ruling is still under appeal. Meanwhile, Mandaloun made one more start as a 3-year-old and earned another Grade 1 victory via disqualification. He crossed the line second by a nose to Hot Rod Charlie in the Haskell Invitational, but Hot Rod Charlie was judged to have interfered with another runner, and Mandaloun was promoted to the win. “I know he’s a genuine Grade 1 horse,” O’Rourke said at the time. “There’s no fluke to the way the horse runs.” Mandaloun won the Grade 3 Louisiana Stakes with a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 106 to open his 4-year-old season. However, he was unable to maintain that form, finishing ninth in the Group 1 Saudi Cup, fourth in the Grade 2 Stephen Foster, and fourth in the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap on July 30. He was back on the work tab at Churchill Downs before his retirement was announced in September. Juddmonte maintains a strong stallion roster at its Banstead Manor Stud in Newmarket, England; the five-horse roster is made up of unbeaten champion and emerging leading sire Frankel, champion Kingman, young Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Expert Eye, and stalwarts Bated Breath and Oasis Dream. However, in contrast, in North America Juddmonte has more often partnered with other farms in order to get breeders behind their stallion prospects. Examples include champions Noble Mission and Flintshire, who entered stud at Lane’s End and Hill ‘n’ Dale, respectively, before moving to international jurisdictions; the regally bred Honest Mischief, who entered stud at Sequel in New York for 2021; and graded stakes winner Tacitus, who entered stud at Taylor Made Farm this past season. As far as its Kentucky farm, Juddmonte debuted 2003 Belmont Stakes winner Empire Maker – its only American classic winner prior to Mandaloun – to great fanfare in 2004, but sold the stallion to Japanese interests before the 2011 season. Empire Maker later returned to the United States at Gainesway. After Juddmonte sold First Defence, the sire of champion Close Hatches, in 2016, the stalwart Mizzen Mast was alone in the stallion wing until Arrogate retired for the 2018 season. Arrogate died in 2020 following a neurological illness, after just three seasons at stud. Meanwhile, Mizzen Mast, now age 24, is a pensioner. He covered 10 mares in 2021 in his most recent activity, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred. “If you look at the stallion rosters at a lot of the big stallion farms in the U.S., you’ll see that most of those operations didn’t actually race the majority of the horses themselves,” O’Rourke has previously explained of Juddmonte’s bloodstock activity. “You have to go out and buy them, and we’re not willing to do that. We race our own horses, we have to be patient in allowing the horses to be good enough in their racing careers to come back. Looking at our rosters over the years, it’s about every five to seven years that we come across a really top horse we can stand at stud. That’s on average. Sometimes you’ll get two or three in a row and then get a gap.” Mandaloun’s promotion to the Kentucky Derby victory made Into Mischief the first stallion officially with back-to-back winners of the American classic, following Authentic in 2020. Authentic debuted for the highest stud fee of the 2021 stallion class, at $75,000 alongside Into Mischief at Spendthrift Farm. He has more than tripled that with a first-crop weanling sales average of $242,692 in 2022 to lead his class early. Authentic’s early commercial appeal is largely due to the success of his sire, which Mandaloun and other young sons could continue to capitalize upon. Into Mischief, who is pursuing his own single-season earnings record en route to a fourth consecutive sire title, is the sire of Goldencents, who was among the leading freshman sires of 2018 and has been consistently successful since. Into Mischief’s second son to stud, Practical Joke, was second to the record-setting Gun Runner on the 2021 freshman earnings list. In the pipeline for the stallion are sons Audible and Maximus Mischief, who had their first yearlings in 2022; Authentic, Honest Mischief, Instagrand, and Rowayton, who had their first weanlings this fall; Engage and Tacitus, who will have their first foals arriving in 2023; and Mandaloun, Life Is Good, Highly Motivated, and Mutasaabeq retiring to stud in 2023. Mandaloun, who will stand for an advertised fee of $25,000, is out of Brooch, a daughter of Juddmonte’s Empire Maker. He has both dirt and turf appeal on the bottom side of his pedigree. Brooch, a Group 2 winner in Ireland, is from the immediate family of Irish Group 1 winner Emulous. It also is the family of dirt Grade 1 winner Cormorant, who went on to be a classic sire in his own right.