Long Range Toddy a Late Success Story for Pleasant Song

Standing in the Oaklawn Park crowd March 16, Willis Horton watched his homebred Long Range Toddy locked in a duel to the wire.

With the highly regarded Improbable battling back against his runner with each dramatic stride—points on the 2019 Road to the Kentucky Derby hanging in the balance—Horton seemingly willed his colt across the line, and the first division of the Rebel Stakes (G2) fell their way by a neck.

The outcome couldn't have been more exciting or more unexpected for Horton, who worked for years to nurture, plan matings, and foal out his beleaguered Unbridled's Song mare Pleasant Song. In Long Range Toddy, her second-to-last foal, she finally produced a hard-knocking stakes winner.

Horton first set eyes on Pleasant Song at the 2006 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. The highly touted filly was the third foal out of the multiple graded stakes-winning mare Pleasant Temper, whose best scores came on the turf in the Jenny Wiley Stakes (G3T) and Ballston Spa Breeders' Cup Handicap (G3T). 

Pleasant Song proved a popular commodity in the auction ring that year. Consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency, the striking gray was purchased by Horton on a final bid of $700,000. It was the fourth-highest price paid for a foal by the late stallion during the marathon sale that year and the biggest-ticket horse on Horton's shortlist. 

Sent to the barn of Dallas Stewart, Pleasant Song made her first start at 3 but did not enjoy the same level of racing success as her dam. She visited the winner's circle only three times in 17 starts, earned just over $100,000 in purses, and was retired to Horton's broodmare band at 4. The mare's first few foals looked promising but did not pan out. 

In 2015, Horton decided to switch things up and take a gamble on an unproven sire. Mated to 2012 Florida Derby (G1) winner Take Charge Indy, Pleasant Song produced a leggy dark bay colt that Horton decided to keep and race. He bred her back to Take Charge Indy once more, then entered her in the 2016 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. 

"She was a really nice mare, but she just wasn't producing anything," said Horton, who sold the mare to Carrie Brogden of Machmer Hall for $22,000.

As it turns out, the dark bay colt Horton kept out of Pleasant Song was perhaps the greatest parting gift she could have offered. Unlike his siblings, Long Range Toddy was quick to impress at 2, earning wins in the Clever Trevor Stakes and Remington Springboard Mile Stakes at Remington Park for trainer Steve Asmussen. 

Back to the track for his sophomore campaign, the colt moved to Oaklawn and garnered second- and third-place honors in the Smarty Jones Stakes and Southwest Stakes (G3), respectively, before he finally laid it all on the line in the Rebel. 

Now the mare who was once considered underwhelming on the racetrack and an underperformer in the breeding shed has a colt on the Road to the Kentucky Derby. 

With 53.5 points, Long Range Toddy ranks third on the Kentucky Derby leaderboard, a total that should ensure him a spot in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) field. With Long Range Toddy's next start likely to come April 13 in Oaklawn's Arkansas Derby (G1), Horton is elated by the possibility of his chances to make it to the first Saturday in May. 

"Long Range Toddy is the best that she's had," Horton said of Pleasant Song's progeny. "It's a great thrill, especially since I bred him myself; a homebred horse, a horse of this caliber that already has enough points to be in the Kentucky Derby, which is where we are planning on heading." 

Despite the colt's success, the knowledge that he let Pleasant Song go is an itch Horton just can't scratch. With a broodmare band of only two mares and a bevy of racehorses in training, Horton has made inquiries about bringing the mare back into the fold. 

"I've tried to buy her back, but they won't give her up," Horton laughed, "but the woman who bought her doesn't plan to breed her and wants to keep her as a pet."

So where did Pleasant Song land after her second trip through the sales ring? The answer, at least initially, was with Brogden. 

"This is back before I was hoarding Unbridled's Song mares," Brogden said of her initial decision to purchase Pleasant Song. "Now I won't let them out of my cold, dead hands. That stallion has been so good to me as a broodmare sire."

Almost immediately after Brogden made her purchase in 2016, she got a call from Elise Durbin in Alabama. A longtime supporter of New Vocations, a racehorse adoption program, Durbin had long admired Pleasant Song during her racing days. She offered to buy the mare off Brogden with the intent to retrain her as a hunter. 

"At the time, she was a middle-aged mare," Brogden said. "I bought her and then I got offered $5,000 on the ticket by a lady, a lovely woman who has show horses. She had known her from the barn and she remembered the mare, saw her after she went to the ring, and she told me she wanted to foal her and keep her, which is exactly what happened. 

"She is loved, loved, loved, and happy. She's safe and sound where she is."

Now 14, Pleasant Song lives with Durbin in Alabama, where she is training as a hunter along with Durbin's other off-track Thoroughbreds and her 2-year-old gelding Night Before Last, a full brother to Long Range Toddy.

"She's a beautiful mare, and I thought she would be great for a second career as a show horse," Durbin said. "She's had the winter off and I've had her in and out of training, but the goal for her is to have a second career as a show horse. But actually, in her case, it's a third career. I'm a big supporter of New Vocations. I like to give them a second chance."

Despite Long Range Toddy's success, there are no plans to take Pleasant Song back to the breeding shed. 

"I'm so happy for Mr. Horton," Durbin said. "I've been watching Long Range Toddy, and it looks like he's going to do well. He's beautiful, and in all the pictures he looks great. 

"It's really so funny that Mr. Horton's racing colors are black and white, and he has this jet-black horse with that big white blaze. It's like his racing colors in a horse. I'm happy for him because I know she was one of his favorite mares. I'm so happy that one of his favorites gave him such a good racehorse."