Spiced Perfection keeps winning, Premier Thoroughbreds keeps accepting the awards

In September, Phil Lebherz’s Premier Thoroughbreds was honored by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association as California’s outstanding breeder of 2018. The way Spiced Perfection continues to run, the operation could continue reaping awards.

Multiple Grade 1 winner Spiced Perfection was bred in California by Premier Thoroughbreds and currently races for Pantofel Stable, Wachtel Stable, and Peter Deutsch. The filly is from the first crop of multiple Grade 1-winning Smiling Tiger, who was co-owned by Lebherz and entered stud in 2014 at Premier, near Oakdale, Calif. After one season, the stallion moved to Harris Farms near Coalinga, Calif., which offered more expansive stallion facilities.

In his one season at Premier, Smiling Tiger was responsible for Spiced Perfection. The filly sold for $6,500 as a yearling at the Barretts October sale, then went to Dare to Dream Stables for $50,000 at the auction company’s March 2-year-old sale the following year. In her juvenile season, Spiced Perfection won the state-restricted Generous Portion Stakes and placed in two other stakes, making Smiling Tiger California’s leading freshman sire. Her campaign also earned Premier Thoroughbreds the McMahon Award, presented to the breeder of the leading money-winning California-bred 2-year-old sold at public auction.

Spiced Perfection continued to perform well against her fellow California-bred or -sired fillies in 2018, winning the Evening Jewel and Betty Grable stakes. Her performances earned her, at the end of the year, a step up to Grade 1 competition, and she won the La Brea Stakes by 1 1/4 lengths on Dec. 26. That victory resulted in her being named California’s horse of the year, champion 3-year-old female, and champion female sprinter of 2018, and also resulted in Premier’s TOBA recognition.

More awards are certainly in the offing for a 2019 season in which Spiced Perfection competed exclusively against graded company, and almost exclusively outside of her home state. After starting the year with a runner-up effort in the Grade 3 Barbara Fritchie Stakes at Laurel Park, she notched her second career Grade 1 score in the Madison Stakes at Keeneland, then was fourth in the Grade 1 Humana Distaff at Churchill Downs. Following a five-month break, she returned to Keeneland to win the Grade 2 Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes in October, then was fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Santa Anita.

Just days after that effort, Spiced Perfection was offered as a racing or broodmare prospect at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale, but failed to meet her reserve at $1.35 million. Her connections sent her to the Grade 3 Go for Wand Stakes on Dec. 7 at Aqueduct, which she won while successfully stretching out to a mile.

“We thought she was the best coming in,” Adam Wachtel said of Spiced Perfection, who has earned more than $1.2 million. “We were a little concerned about the distance; she hadn’t run a mile in a while. We were concerned about the weight. She was spotting the other fillies an awful lot of weight. . . . She’s just a classy filly that gives her all every time.”

Spiced Perfection is out of the late mare Perfect Feat, a winning daughter of Pleasantly Perfect purchased for $7,500 by Premier Thoroughbreds at the 2014 Barretts January sale. The mare was from the extended family of Eclipse Award champion Lady Eli, Canadian champion Spring in the Air, and Grade/Group 1 winners Palace Episode and Sweet Loretta.

Perfect Feat was posthumously honored as California’s broodmare of the year for 2018. In addition to Spiced Perfection, she was represented on the season by outstanding California-bred 2-year-old male Cruel Intention, winner of the Golden State Juvenile. He was stakes-placed this year as a 3-year-old for owners Jungle Racing, LNJ Foxwoods, and Nexus Racing Club.

Other top runners bred by Premier Thoroughbreds in recent years include Miss Sunset, who Lebherz bred and campaigned in partnership with Alan Klein. The filly was a Grade 2 winner at Keeneland and captured eight stakes in her home state of California. Miss Sunset is the only winner to date out of the winning Trippi mare Tuscan Sunset, whom the breeders sold for $200,000 to SF Bloodstock at the 2018 Keeneland November sale. The mare has a weanling filly by Mastery and is currently in foal to Accelerate.