2023 Kentucky Derby pedigree profile: Tapit Trice

Tapit Trice

Tapit - Danzatrice, by Dunkirk

Bred in Kentucky by Gainesway ($1.3 million Keeneland September yearling purchase by Whisper Hill Farm)

Tapit Trice is a major mover on this week’s Derby Watch Top 20 list following a one-mile allowance-level score on Saturday at Gulfstream in which he rolled by eight lengths and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 92. Tapit Trice. who is eyeing his stakes debut next out, sports stamina on both sides of his pedigree, suggesting challenges beyond that mile distance are well within his wheelhouse.

Perennial leading sire Tapit is coming off a strong 2022 season in which he was represented by unbeaten Horse of the Year Flightline, a dominant winner of the Pacific Classic and Breeders’ Cup Classic at 1 1/4 miles. Tapit’s ability to impart stamina is also in evidence in his four winners of the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes: Tonalist (2014), Creator (2016), Tapwrit (2017), and Essential Quality (2021). Those four winners are the most for a sire in the modern history of the race, and Tapit is tied with the great Lexington, in the Civil War era, for the all-time record in the oldest and longest American classic.

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Flightline and Essential Quality are among Tapit’s six Eclipse Award champions, all of whom won Grade 1 races around two turns.

Tapit Trice is the second foal out of Danzatrice, a daughter of 2009 Belmont Stakes runner-up Dunkirk. The mare won seven of 15 starts, including the Parx Oaks and Tiffany Lass, both at a mile and 70 yards, and the Iowa Distaff at 1 1/16 miles. She was third in the Grade 3 Groupie Doll at a mile.

Danzatrice is a half-sister, and bred on the same cross, to Eclipse Award champion 2-year-old filly Jaywalk, whose multiple graded wins at 1 1/16 miles were highlighted by the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. They are also half-siblings to Nice Guys Finish, a minor stakes winner at seven furlongs. This is the extended family of 2010 Louisiana Derby winner Mission Impazible, who retired as a multiple graded stakes-winning millionaire.

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