The TVG.com Haskell Stakes (G1) promises to be a defining race for the undefeated Jack Christopher that could shift opinions about the son of Munnings .
Unquestionably as fast of a 3-year-old as anyone could find in any part of the country in terms of speed figures, the July 23 Haskell will serve as the colt's first race beyond a mile and around two turns.
So, by the end of what looms as a steamy day at the Jersey Shore, much more will be known about him. He could win by daylight and be hailed as a wonder horse. Or he could shorten stride in the final furlong and be exposed as a miler or a sprinter.
Either way, the conversations about the Chad Brown-trained runner should be changing rather soon.
Except for when Jim Bakke talks about Jack Christopher.
Win, lose, or draw in the $1 million Haskell at Monmouth Park, nothing will change for Bakke, a Wisconsin resident and the majority owner of the chestnut colt. To him, Jack Christopher is the horse he has dreamed about owning since entering the sport about 25 years ago.
"Jack Christopher is by far the best horse I've ever owned," said the 68-year-old Bakke, who named the colt after his grandson. "He already has two grade 1 wins and I never owned a grade 1 winner before. Obviously, this is a special horse. I've had some good ones in the past, but nothing that comes up to his level."
Despite maintaining a relatively modest stable of about 12 runners, Bakke owned a few stellar graded stakes winners prior to Jack Christopher entering his life. With his brother-in-law, Fred Schwartz, who coaxed Bakke into joining him as a horse owner more than two decades ago, he owns the grade 2-winning Sconsin. A homebred daughter of Include, she has earned $946,162 with trainer Gregory Foley.
With Gerald Isbister, his original partner in Jack Christopher, Bakke, the CEO and president of the Sub-Zero Freezer Company, he owned Mr Freeze , a son of To Honor and Serve who earned $1.5 million for trainer Dale Romans.
Yet they and the other horses Bakke has owned have been unable to reach the heights that Jack Christopher has scaled. In his second start, the colt won the prestigious Champagne Stakes (G1) for 2-year-olds. At 3, he returned from seven months on the sidelines after shin surgery to win the Pat Day Mile Stakes Presented by LG&E and KU (G2). Then, in a dazzling performance, he captured the seven-furlong Woody Stephens Stakes Presented by Mohegan Sun (G1) by 10 lengths in a rapid 1:21.18.
"He's the most brilliant 3-year-old I've ever had at this point of the year," Brown said.
Efforts like those explain why he's the 3-2 second choice in the morning line for the Haskell and the even-money choice in the initial posting of Monmouth's fixed odds on the race.
"He's a phenomenal horse," said Bakke, who now owns roughly a two-thirds share of Jack Christopher in a partnership that now lists Isbister, his longtime friend who is a distributor of Sub-Zero products and owns a small share of the 3-year-old, Coolmore Stud, and Peter Brant. "He's a once in a lifetime horse."
For Brown, a four-time Eclipse Award winner who works for some of the sport's biggest and best stables, there's been tremendous satisfaction in watching the joy Bakke has derived from Jack Christopher's success.
"Jim is a real gentleman who has been in the game a long time. This is a great family experience for him and he's a very deserving owner of this horse," Brown said. "It's a great ride for him and I'm happy to be a part of it."
Brad Weisbord, founder of BSW/Crow Bloodstock, has been Bakke's racing manager for the last six years and delights in all of the excitement Jack Christopher has instilled in Bakke's life.
"I am so happy this horse landed in Jim's hands. I've been around a lot of grade 1 winners and that includes (Triple Crown winner) Justify and Jack Christopher has as much talent as any horse I've been around," he said.
Jack Christopher came into Bakke's life through the persistence of Liz Crow, Weisbord's partner in BSW/Crow.
Crow took two swings at buying the son of the Half Ours mare Rushin No Blushin and knocked it out of the park in her second try.
She first spotted Jack Christopher at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Selected Yearlings Showcase and loved what she saw.
"I really liked him at the sale. He looked a lot like his sire. I actually thought he was a little better-looking version of his sire," she said.
Crow bid on Bakke's behalf but soon realized she was bidding against the reserve price.
"I let the hammer drop (at a RNA of $145,000) and I texted Leslie Campion of Paramount Sales (the consigner for breeders Castleton Lyons and Kilboy Estate). I asked what they wanted and she said $150,000. Jim wanted to pay more like $130,000. COVID had disrupted the sales and everyone wanted a bargain. So, I kept texting back and forth with Leslie and she said they were going to take him to the October sale (the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale) and I thought I could take another look at him a month later."
What Crow saw in October, she liked even more than the September version of the yearling.
"He had strengthened up and grown in that month, which in my experience is always the sign of a good horse when they change and develop from month-to-month for the better. He had done that and had a nice presence about him. He had a very athletic walk. He was at the top of my list for that sale," Crow said. "I heard he didn't pass the vets for everybody. He had a finding in his knee that was very small and my vet was fine with it. He didn't even call it a moderate risk. He said it was a mild finding."
This time, Crow bid on the colt with the mindset of signing the ticket for him, and when all was said and done, she landed him for $135,000.
"I was going to keep going. I thought he was worth the $150,000 and we were just lucky to get him for $135,000," Crow said about the $841,400 earner who figures to command a lucrative stallion deal at the end of his racing career. "Jim wanted a filly at the time. He's such a good guy to work with because I told him I really wanted to buy this colt and he said 'Ok.' He wanted to spend $125,000 and I bought 'Jack' for $135,000, asking for forgiveness rather than permission and he was good with that."
Bakke said there was nothing out of the ordinary about Jack Christopher as he prepared for his racing career with Paul Sharp. But that all of that changed as the colt neared his racing debut at Saratoga Race Course with Brown.
"Once he got to Chad, Brad called and said the light went on and he was training great," Bakke said.
That was underscored by his Aug. 28 debut at the Spa when he ran for Bakke and Isbister and won a six-furlong maiden race by 8 3/4 lengths in 1:09.85.
It was such a dazzling performance that afterwards Coolmore and Brant bought a combined 33% share of Jack Christopher.
"At the time it seemed like a rich deal but a fair deal," Brant said.
Brant, one of Brown's top owners, said he purchased his share for breeding purposes.
"I like Munnings a lot and I like Speightstown (the sire of Munnings) a lot. There's a lot of speed and stoutness in their horses," Brant said. "The two most impressive maiden races at Saratoga were won by Jack Christopher and Classic Causeway and Coolmore really liked him for the speed he showed."
A 2 3/4-length score in the one-turn mile Champagne justified the new owners' faith in their acquisition and established Jack Christopher as one of the favorites for the TVG Breeders' Cup Juvenile Presented by Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (G1). But it was not to be.
On the eve of the race, Breeders' Cup veterinarians scratched Jack Christopher from what would have been his two-turn debut because of a shin issue.
"For an owner like me, who never had a serious Breeders' Cup contender, it was a tough pill to swallow," Bakke said. "But at the end of the day you have to move on and he's done fabulously since then, so it's all been forgotten."
Weisbord, who was at dinner with Bakke when the call came informing him that Jack Christopher would not be running, likened the news to a punch in the gut.
"His two races at 2 were brilliant and that's why it was such a crushing blow when he was scratched from the Breeders' Cup the night before the race. We were all dressed up and ready to go and they weren't going to let him run because of the shin. Chad had never whispered about the shin. It was the worst phone call I ever received in the horse racing industry and I've gotten hundreds of bad phone calls," Weisbord said. "You have a Breeders' Cup favorite that's going to be 6-5 and be a champion. You have the owner and his family next to you; you have to tell them while you are wondering if they will ever get back there again."
The injury required surgery at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital, with Dr. Larry Bramlage inserting a screw in his left shin. Since then, Brown said the shin has been fine.
"I have to give a lot of credit to Dr. Bramlage and Chad and his team for getting him back," Weisbord said.
The timing of surgery prevented Jack Christopher from running in the Triple Crown, but on Saturday at Monmouth, he will finally catch up with some of the top horses in the division, facing three Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) starters and a trio of fellow grade 1 winners in Taiba , Cyberknife , and White Abarrio.
A monstrous speed figure from the Woody Stephens gives Jack Christopher an edge on paper over his seven rivals in the nationally televised (CNBC, 5-6 p.m., EDT) Haskell, but the numbers alone do not tell the whole story. Jack Christopher registered those times and figures in shorter races and there's no guarantee that he has the stamina to stretch out that speed over 1 1/8 miles. His sire was a grade 2-winning sprinter who captured the 2009 Woody Stephens (G2).
Without question, Jack Christopher's ability to handle the distance is the key question surrounding the Haskell and, just like conjecture about 1 1/4 miles before the Kentucky Derby, there's no sure answer even though the 3-year-old has displayed an ability to sit second for regular rider Jose Ortiz during the early stages of his races.
Brown is confident he can handle it.
"(Jack Christopher) is exceptional. It's something we can't control," he said about an initial two-turn race at this point in the colt's career. "We planned to run two turns in the Breeders' Cup last year, so it's all about timing and here we are. I think this is the right time and place to do it."
Weisbord puts the odds at 50-50, but has no doubts about the multiple grade 1 winner's extreme talent.
"Who knows if he can get a mile and an eighth? We'll find out Saturday. I think it's 50-50," he said. "Chad seems confident he can do it, even with Munnings and the dam side. But the brilliance is there. I think this horse breathes rarefied air."
Crow said at the sales she envisioned Jack Christopher as a sprinter but sees the intangibles that could carry him across the wire first Saturday.
"I saw him as a sprinter, a miler. Especially with the dam side and being a Munnings. He looked very fast and to me he looked early and could run in the summer and, of course, would have a lot of speed," Crow said. "Turning into what he turned into was our wildest imagination. I hope he can get nine furlongs. The most important thing to me is that you've seen him be kind and rate in all of his races. Jose has asked him to pull back from a speed and he has listened to him and done it. I think he's smart enough to rate. I'll be holding my breath when he turns for home, hoping he can hang on, but I wouldn't trade places with anyone."
Brant, an expert horseman and one-time world-class polo player, sees the sprint side of Jack Christopher but also believes looks can be deceiving.
"I think he's a top horse. We don't know about the distance. To me, he's built like a great seven furlong to a mile horse, but sometimes horses like him run better than that," Brant said. "Distance is always a question mark. He looks like a great miler but he's not showing any signs that he can't go farther. A lot of great trainers used seven- furlong races to get ready for mile and a quarter races. He's a fit horse and training well and we'll see what he can do.
"You can't win if you are in the barn."
That's quite true, which Bakke and everyone else experienced quite painfully at the Breeders' Cup. Now, nearly nine months later, Bakke will finally be treated to that thrilling date with destiny when Jack Christopher will be tested for his worthiness in the classic races.
"All I know is I have a fast horse. Chad, Bradley, Liz—they have all done a great job for me. It's exciting. He has deserved everything he's accomplished and I hope all of the things people are saying about him are true. I think he's really going to run big on Saturday. People think he's a one-turn horse, but we'll see on Saturday. I think he has a high-cruising speed and he can relax and rate," Bakke said. "Chad always mentions that this horse reminds him of Ghostzapper and that's pretty high company. I hope he's right."
Whether Brown is right or wrong, rest assured that nothing will change for Bakke when he talks about Jack Christopher, a horse who has become for him the stuff dreams are made of.
