Goldencents getting first Derby starter early in By My Standards

Six years after starting in the Kentucky Derby, Goldencents will have a first-crop Kentucky Derby starter in Louisiana Derby winner By My Standards.

Goldencents, by Into Mischief, won the 2013 Santa Anita Derby and started in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. He later found his niche in shorter races, winning the 2013 and 2014 editions of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. He was retired to stand alongside his sire at Spendthrift Farm for the 2015 season.

Goldencents led the freshman sire list by individual winners last season and finished second on the earnings list to another young Spendthrift sire, Cross Traffic. Cross Traffic is represented by Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner and divisional Eclipse Award champion Jaywalk, who is expected to start in the Kentucky Oaks.

Goldencents is also the sire of stakes winners Pickett and Silvercents; Always Hope, a Group 3 winner in Panama; and stakes-placed Gold Diggin Darlin, Musada, Seven Scents, and Strive For a Cure.

Winning bet on Goldencents

Owner Chester Thomas spent $280,000 on a pair of colts from the first crop of Goldencents. It’s been a golden investment, earning him back more than $800,000 and a spot in the Kentucky Derby.

Thomas, via bloodstock agent Josh Stevens, purchased By My Standards for $150,000 at Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s spring sale of 2-year-olds in training in April 2018. Less than a year later, the colt won the Louisiana Derby in the colors of Thomas’s Allied Racing to punch his ticket to the Kentucky Derby. Thomas had purchased another Goldencents colt for $150,000 at the 2017 Keeneland September yearling sale, Mr. Money. Mr. Money won his maiden in his third start, finished a creditable fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and is headed to the Grade 3 Pat Day Mile on the Kentucky Derby undercard after a seventh and a fifth in Derby points races.

“We’re just keeping our fingers crossed, hoping everything stays good,” Thomas said after By My Standards turned in a breeze at Churchill Downs. “It’ll be an exciting day, for sure.”

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Thomas grew up going to Ellis Park, about 40 minutes away from his hometown of Madisonville, with his father. He has now twice finished as the leading owner. According to Equibase statistics, Allied Racing made 23 starts in 2012, with four wins. Last year, the outfit went 18 for 129 for earnings of $669,760. It has already earned $859,744 this year thanks to By My Standards, Thomas’s first graded winner.

“How do you put this in perspective with such a short amount of time?” Thomas said after the Louisiana Derby. “Really, it hasn’t sunk in yet. My father started taking me to the track when I was 6 or 7. I quit college to become a jockey’s agent in 1981 or 1982. I don’t know, life is good right now. It doesn’t get any better than this.”