Stallion Analysis: Life Is Good

One of the hottest new stallions of 2023 is from a top-tier sire-making family

2022 Pegasus World Cup winner Life Is Good will be standing his first season at stud in 2023, and there are a lot of reasons to be excited about this son of Into Mischief as a stallion.

Life Is Good was a phenomenal racehorse with many brilliant performances in his 12-race career, where he found the winners circle 9 times. In November of his two-year-old season, he won his 6 1/2 furlong debut by 9 1/2 lengths in wire-to-wire fashion, immediately stamping himself as a force to be reckoned with. He followed that up with back-to-back wins in the Sham and San Felipe Stakes before an ankle injury kept him out of the Triple Crown series.

He was transferred to the barn of Todd Pletcher after Bob Baffert's ban from Churchill Downs, Inc. and New York Racing Association tracks, and returned in the H. Allen Jerkens Memorial stakes that August, where he finished second by a neck to Jackie's Warrior. He rebounded with three straight wins - the Kelso, the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, and the Pegasus World Cup over Breeders' Cup Classic winner Knicks Go. He shipped to Dubai and stretched out for the Dubai World Cup but could only manage fourth place.

Back in the states, his brilliance kept his competition limited for his next three starts as he trounced three rivals (including G1 winner Speaker's Corner) in the John A. Nerud, then defeated a short but deep field in the Whitney Stakes, and followed that up with a win in the Woodward Stakes. His connections opted for the Breeders' Cup Classic over an attempt to repeat in the Dirt Mile, where he took the lead and set fast fractions before being overtaken by Flightline and fading to fifth.

Pedigree Analysis

Life Is Good's level of speed and brilliance are reason enough for breeders to give him a chance this year, when he'll stand for an advertised fee of $100,000 at WinStar Farm. However, his racetrack performance is far from his only appealing trait; he has the pedigree to be just as good of a stallion as he was a racehorse.

Life Is Good is by leading sire Into Mischief and out of a mare by Distorted Humor, making him bred on the same sire/damsire cross as Practical Joke, the second-leading second-crop sire of 2022. Practical Joke sired G1 winner Chocolate Gelato last year, as well as an impressive four G1 winners in Chile. If his success is anything to go on, the future couldn't be brighter for Life Is Good.

Apart from the great stallions that feature prominently in Life Is Good's pedigree - his second dam is by Mineshaft, his third dam is by Dixieland Band, and his fourth dam is by Miswaki, - Life Is Good also comes from what is disputably the most prolific sire family in the sport, family 13c. His 12th dam is the legendary mare Frizette, whose tail-female descendants include stallions such as Mr. Prospector, Seattle Slew, Siberian Express, Forestry, Elusive Quality, Quality Road, and 2022 leading freshman stallion Bolt d'Oro, among others. Other stallions from non-Frizette branches of family 13c include the likes of Candy Ride and Le Fabuleux.