2020 Eclipse Awards: Tiz the Law

Every year Sackatoga Stables teams up with trainer Barclay Tagg to buy a couple of horses. Twice now they’ve hit the mother lode, a remarkable strike rate when facing operations that buy scores more horses in the hope a couple pan out to pay for the rest.

Back in 2003, Sackatoga and Tagg captivated the country with Funny Cide, a New York-bred gelding who won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness and went on to be named the year’s champion 3-year-old male. They will try to win that title for the second time tonight with Tiz the Law, a New York-bred who completed a Triple Crown of sorts for Sackatoga and Tagg when he won the 2020 Belmont Stakes.

The Belmont was the first leg of this year’s reconstituted Triple Crown, and was part of a streak that found Tiz the Law winning three straight Grade 1 races. He competed from February through November, against the best in the country, and won four times in six starts, plus a second-place finish in the Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve to fellow divisional finalist Authentic. Manny Franco rode him in all six races.

Tiz the Law was based in Florida during the winter and won two of Gulfstream Park’s biggest Derby preps, the Grade 3 Holy Bull and the Grade 1 Curlin Florida Derby. But the Derby was postponed by four months, and racing was suspended for nearly three months in New York. When Tiz the Law returned to action, it was in June in a Belmont that was shortened to 1 1/8 miles to compensate for the lack of available preps owing to racing having been shut down in New York.

:: Full list of 2020 Eclipse Awards finalists, including profile stories

Racing over the track where he won the Champagne at age 2, Tiz the Law was an emphatic winner of the Belmont.

He then moved on to Saratoga, for a race his hometown owners desired as much as anything, the Travers, which Funny Cide was forced to miss back in 2003. Tiz the Law again was dominant, winning by 5 1/2 lengths. He thus went into the Derby having already won at 1 1/4 miles, with four straight victories by a combined margin of 16 1/2 lengths.

But in the Derby, run at the track where Tiz the Law suffered his only prior defeat, he could not get past Authentic and had to settle for second.

Tiz the Law bypassed the Preakness to come into the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic fresh, but he drew an inside post and never got untracked, finishing sixth while suffering his second straight loss, both in races won by Authentic.

Tiz the Law, by Constitution out of the Tiznow mare Tizfiz, was bred by Twin Creeks Farm and was purchased by Sackatoga’s Jack Knowlton as a yearling for $110,000. His breeding rights were acquired by Coolmore’s Ashford Stud last June. Though he was initially scheduled to race for Sackatoga at age 4, Tiz the Law was retired in late December owing to bone bruising and will begin stud duty next month at Ashford.