Fun to Dream's background as extraordinary as her future is bright
DEL MAR, Calif. – Fun to Dream faces rivals who are faster and more accomplished at Del Mar on Thursday, but none enters the $175,0000 Fleet Treat Stakes with a future as bright or background as singular.
Aside from her charming name and impressive win in her only start, Fun to Dream’s pedigree hints her best races are ahead. That might seem strange considering her dam was a low-level claiming sprinter whose career ended on a downward spiral, a third for an $8,000 tag.
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There is more to her story, of course, and Fun to Dream has plenty to prove Thursday in the seven-furlong Fleet Treat for Cal-bred 3-year-old fillies. She meets stakes winner and likely favorite Connie Swingle, stakes winners Rose Dawson and Tam’s Little Angel, and Opening Buzz, whose debut romp on synthetic earned a field-high 92 Beyer.
Business owner Michael Pageler and his wife, Connie, entered California racing in 2011, teaming with Live Your Dream Racing to claim the filly Lutess for $12,500. Racing for Bob Baffert, she won once and finished second twice. After she got claimed away, Michael Pageler told racing manager Bob Baedeker he wanted to claim her back, retire her, and breed her.
“I said, ‘Are you sure?’ ” Baedeker recalled, and cautioned Pageler on the expenses. Pageler insisted, and when Lutess ran back for $8,000 in early 2012 at Santa Anita, Pageler claimed her, retired her and bred her to low-budget California stallion Acclamation. He got lucky with her second foal, Heck Yeah, trained by Baffert.
Heck Yeah won four of his first five starts, including three stakes, for owners including Pageler and Baedeker. One morning at Santa Anita, Baffert marveled at the physique of Heck Yeah, sired by $4,000 stallion Acclamation and produced by a claiming mare.
“Look at that SOB,” Baffert said, pointing to Heck Yeah. “What a good-looking horse. What if we breed [Lutess] to one of my good ones?”
Pageler and Baedeker thought Baffert was joking when he suggested breeding Lutess to Arrogate. The thinking was if Lutess could produce an attractive horse by Acclamation, what type would she produce by a stallion who was one of the best horses Baffert has trained?
Baffert ran the Lutess idea past Garrett O’Rourke, general manager at Juddmonte Farms, where Arrogate stood.
“It was a crazy idea,” Baffert said, to breed a $50,000 stallion to a low-level claiming mare.
Baffert said to O’Rourke: “Don’t look at her race record. I have a feeling about this one.”
Furthermore, Baffert had taken a liking to Mike Pageler.
“Mike was such a super-nice guy,” Baffert said. “I could have sold my breeding to Arrogate, but Mike . . . he was lucky. And then he got sick.”
Not long after Lutess got in foal to Arrogate in spring 2018, Mike Pageler took ill, diagnosed with lung cancer. It would be an emotional time for the family. Mike and Connie were high-school sweethearts married in 1974, with three sons.
“When he was diagnosed, we knew what the outcome was going to be,” Connie said. “Mike was so thrilled about partnering up with Baffert on this siring of Arrogate to Lutess. He didn’t get a chance to stick around to see what happened.”
Mike Pageler was 63 when he died Nov. 9, 2018 at his home in Arizona. Lutess delivered her Arrogate foal in spring 2019. Arrogate died the following spring, in 2020.
Naming the unraced filly was not an immediate priority for Connie Pageler.
“The first two and half to three years after Mike died, I was pretty much in a fog,” she said.
“I was talking to Bob Baffert after Mike died and trying to figure out all the ins and outs of racing,” Connie said. “One day he made the comment, ‘It’s always fun to dream.’ I thought – why not name [the filly] Fun to Dream? It seemed to stick.”
Arrogate was a late developer as a racehorse. Baffert suspected Fun to Dream also would be. The filly is Cal-bred because Lutess was bred back to a California stallion. The 2-year-old colt by Smiling Tiger, Cowboy Mike, is training at Los Alamitos.
While Baffert was suspended, Fun to Dream made her career debut for trainer Sean McCarthy on May 28 at Santa Anita and romped by more than six lengths. The filly she beat returned to win by more than seven lengths while improving her Beyer by 10 points. If second-time starter Fun to Dream improves likewise, her 78 debut Beyer becomes 88.
That would be enough for the large gray filly Fun to Dream to win the Fleet Treat for co-owners Connie Pageler and Baffert’s wife, Jill.
Connie, who lives in Arizona, plans to attend the Fleet Treat with two daughters-in-law and four grandchildren who range in age from 2 to 11.
For them, Thursday at Del Mar is all about a 3-year-old. After all, it is fun to dream.