Grade 3 Winner Wit To Enter Stud In Louisiana After Keeneland April Sale

Multiple Grade 3 winner Wit will enter stud at Whispering Oaks Farm in Carencro, La., for next year's breeding season after selling for $100,000 at the Keeneland April Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale.

The 5-year-old son of Practical Joke was offered as a stallion prospect at Friday's auction, and bloodstock agent Andrew Cary signed the ticket for the Louisiana-based partnership of Whispering Oaks and Coteau Grove Farms.

Cary said the partnership stands Grade 1 winner No Parole in Louisiana, and the group was looking to add another member to its roster for the 2025 breeding season.

"He's a horse that was incredibly talented, Grade 1 talent, danced all the dances," Cary said. "I'm tickled to death. He's a big, beautiful horse, a $575,000 yearling. Practical Joke is going from strength to strength, and it's the Into Mischief sire line. We're going to support him very strongly, and hopefully make him a champion stallion in Louisiana."

Wit retired with four wins in 13 starts for earnings of $648,000, racing for owners Repole Stable, St. Elias Stable, and Gainesway Stable. Todd Pletcher trained the horse, and he was consigned at the sale by Gainesway, agent.

Wit won his first two career starts as a juvenile, debuting with a six length triumph in a Belmont Park maiden special weight at Belmont Park, then winning the Grade 3 Sanford Stakes at Saratoga by eight lengths. He finished the season with a runner-up effort in teh G1 Hopeful Stakes and a third in the G1 Champagne Stakes.

"If he wins the Hopeful, he's probably standing in Kentucky," Cary said. "He was second after a bad start to Gunite, who's standing for $40,000."

At three, Wit came back with a win by a nose in the G3 Bay Shore Stakes. Two starts later, he was switched to the turf, where he saw immediate success.

He debuted on the new surface with a runner-up effort in the G2 Hall of Fame Stakes, followed by a victory in the Better Talk Now Stakes. The second half of his sophomore turf campaign saw him run second in the G3 Bryan Station Stakes and third in the G1 Hollywood Derby, missing the leader by less than a length in both tries.

Wit raced three times in 2023, with his best effort coming in what would be his final career start: a third-place effort in the Belmont Turf Sprint Stakes. He had been working toward a return start at the Palm Beach Downs training center before the decision was made to retire him.

Bred in Kentucky by Rosilyn Polan, Wit is out of the unraced Medaglia d'Oro mare Numer d'Oro, whose four winners from seven foals to race also includes Grade 3 winner Barkley.