Catching Up With Pleasant Home

Pleasant Home rolls to a dominant victory in the 2005 Breeders' Cup Distaff. (All photos by Horephotos.com)
Coming from a famed racing family, there were high hopes for Pleasant Home from the second she was born on May 5, 2001. Three years later, she started living up to them.
Pleasant Home finished fourth in her first start in late April of her 3-year-old year, but when she returned the day after Independence Day that year, she blasted to a 4-length victory. Ever the patient horseman, trainer Shug McGaughey put her in an allowance race next instead of a stakes race and she rewarded him with a 1 ¾-length win.
Pleasant Home raced two more times in allowance races as a 3-year-old, finishing third both times. But she started her 4-year-old season with a win, taking an allowance in late March by three-quarters of a length, a victory that set her up for her stakes debut.
On April 23, 2005 Pleasant Home headed toward the paddock for the Bed o’ Roses Breeders’ Cup Handicap, her first run at the graded stakes level. Living up to her family’s success in graded stakes, Pleasant Home closed from second to last to run away with the race by 5 ¼ lengths. It was a flash of what was to come later in the year.
Pleasant Home didn’t hit the board in her next start, but finished third in an allowance race that August. Two weeks after that third, she moved up to Grade 1 company for the first time in the Ballerina Stakes. While she couldn’t catch 5 ½-length winner Happy Ticket, she didn’t disgrace herself when finishing second.
Her connections sent her to Kentucky for one final race before the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, a run in the Juddmonte Spinster Stakes at Keeneland. Again, she was a bridesmaid when trying to get her first Grade 1 score but was only 1 ¾ lengths behind the winner in this race, punching her ticket to the Distaff.
Pleasant Home proved that she was saving her best performance for a run on her home track when she broke from the starting gate at Belmont Park for the Distaff.
While most of the field grouped tightly together, Pleasant Home dropped a few lengths behind the pack with a few others in what had become her customary style. She moved through the pack as the field raced around the far turn but still had four horses to pass as they turned into the stretch. But there was no stopping her from getting the Grade 1 that had eluded her all fall and she blew right past a group that included the previous year’s Distaff winner, Ashado, to take the lead.
Pleasant Home ran down the stretch like she was blasted out of a cannon, holding a 3-length lead by the stretch call at the eighth pole. A furlong later, she passed the winning post 9 ¼ lengths ahead of the rest of the field at odds of 30.75-to-1.
PLEASANT HOME VISIT'S THE BREEDERS' CUP WINNER'S CIRCLE

The margin of victory was the second largest in the race’s history, behind only Inside Information’s 13 ½-length victory in 1995. Both fillies were trained by McGaughey for the Phipps family.
McGaughey was honest in his assessment of Pleasant Home’s win when talking to ESPN, showing he was just as surprised by the performance as most people watching the race.
“I was expecting her to run well, but I wasn't expecting this,” McGaughey said. “She doesn't have any early speed, but I thought somewhere in the race, we’d get some help.”
2005 BREEDERS’ CUP DISTAFF

A few weeks later it was announced that Pleasant Home had been retired and was going to be bred to Awesome Again the following year. She retired with a record of five wins, two seconds, and three thirds in 12 starts for $1,378,070 in earnings.
Pleasant Home returned to the place she was born, Claiborne Farm in Paris, Ky., where the Phipps family board its mares.
“It is very exciting [to see a Phipps horse raised at Claiborne to accomplish what Pleasant Home did],” Claiborne’s Bradley Purcell said. “It’s kind of like seeing one of your children achieve on the highest stage. They are born and raised here, and you spend most of your days working with them so they become your children. So it is very exciting to see them achieve at the highest level.”
Pleasant Home’s first foal, a filly later named S’ Avall, was born on Feb. 3, 2007. The filly never raced and was sold as a 3-year-old carrying a foal by Broken Vow for $550,000. That foal, named Surf Classic, is a winner, while her 2-year-old by Tale of Ekati is currently working toward her debut.
Pleasant Home’s second foal, a filly by Distorted Humor named How Pleasant, recorded one victory during an 8-race career on the track but Pleasant Home’s third foal has been her best to hit the track so far.
By Giant’s Causeway, the filly named Trophy Wife broke her maiden by 3 1/2 lengths in her fourth start. While she never had her dam’s success at the stakes level, Trophy Wife won three of her starts and earned $184,460. Trophy Wife was retired after the 2013 season and was bred to Data Link in 2014.
Since Trophy Wife, Pleasant Home has had two foals to race with her 4-year-old daughter Magical World winning a race earlier this year. Her 3-year-old colt, named Hereditary, made one start late last year and finished seventh. He hasn’t raced since but has been putting in regular workouts since Aug.1.
Pleasant Home has two foals that have yet to hit the track coming down the pipe as well. A 2-year-old filly by Indian Charlie, named Chuckling, is currently preparing for her racing career at Niall Brennan Stables, where she has been breezing regularly. Pleasant Home also has a yearling full-sister to Hereditary named Blenheim Palace who has at least another year before we could see her on the track.
While her foals so far have not had much in common with their dam when it comes to success on the track, they all share one important trait with her.
“Usually tall, long, and leggy, just the way she is,” said Purcell. “She is about 16.2 or 3 [hands] herself, so they usually have a lot of leg and it takes them a lot of time to mature and to grow into themselves.”
Though Pleasant Home lived up to expectations on the track, everyone around her still has high expectations for her broodmare career. At 13 years of age, Pleasant Home still has many years of being a mother ahead of her, and her connections are also looking ahead to what impact her daughters will have as broodmares.
“She is a Seeking the Gold [daughter], still fairly young at 13 and she’s thrown some fillies, so hopefully they’ll go on and win some races and produce some nice offspring as well,” Purcell said. “She’s a really nice mare and we’ve got high expectations for her down the road.”
As for her life outside of being a broodmare, Pleasant Home lives up to her name as one of the friendliest mares on the farm. Purcell says that whoever brings her food, especially peppermints, is her new best friend, but she is kind to everyone she encounters.
“She’s a sweetheart. She always has been from day she arrived,” he said. “She’s kind of the barn pet, and whatever fella is fortunate to get her in his barn is very thankful to have her because she’s very easy to work with.”
Pleasant Home did not have a foal this year but was bred to 2013 Kentucky Derby winner Orb. There is little doubt that many fans will be hoping that the resulting foal lives up to the success that both its parents had on the track.