BY AVALYN HUNTER
With Justify having become perhaps the hottest young stallion on the planet, graded stakes-winning sons of his are in short supply as stallion prospects. The most accomplished of his North American sons outside Kentucky is Verifying, who is standing his second season at Pleasant Acres Stallions. A Grade 3 winner with multiple Grade 1 placings to his credit, Verifying also offers a fine pedigree and solid conformation to Florida breeders.
The distaff side of Verifying’s pedigree represents some excellent Florida breeding. A half-brother to 2019 champion older female Midnight Bisou (by Midnight Lute) and to multiple stakes-winner Stage Left (by Congrats), he is out of 2010 Florida Oaks (G3) winning Florida-bred Diva Delite, who was bred at Cloverleaf Farms II near Reddick. Her sire, Repent, won the 2001 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes (G2) and 2002 Louisiana Derby (G2) and ran a bang-up second to Medaglia d’Oro in the Travers Stakes (G1), racking up a career-high 119 Equibase speed figure, before starting his stud career at Cloverleaf. By 2009, the son of 1996 Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Louis Quatorze was in Kentucky, but he left some good stock behind him in the Sunshine State.
The dam of Diva Delite, stakes-placed Tour Hostess, was also a Florida-bred daughter of a good Florida sire, in her case Tour d’Or, a Secretariat grandson who stood at Noel Hickey’s Irish Acres Farm. A half-sister to multiple stakes-winner Florida-bred Bay Street Gal (by Marco Bay), Tour Hostess represents a female line that has been in Florida since her great-granddam Cargreen (the dam of Grade 2-winner Green Gambados, by Swaps) came to the state during the 1960s.
A $775,000 yearling at the 2021 Keeneland September sale, Verifying broke his maiden at first asking in a Saratoga Race Course maiden special weight and was second to Blazing Sevens in the 2022 Champagne (G1) in his next outing. At three, he stamped himself as a legitimate Kentucky Derby hopeful when second by a neck to Tapit Trice in the 2023 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (G1) with Blazing Sevens third. Following a subpar run in the Derby, he bounced back with a second in the Matt Winn (G3) before scoring a game victory over Gotham (G3)-winner Raise Cain in the Indiana Derby (G3). He earned another Grade 1 placing with a second to 19-1 longshot One in Vermillion in the H. Allen Jerkins (G1) before retiring with three wins and four seconds from 11 starts and earnings of $852,706.
“Verifying is a gorgeous horse and pretty much what you’d expect from a son of Justify—lots of power, very good balance, and good bone,” says Pleasant Acres Stallions Director of Stallions Services Christine Jones. “He covered 127 mares in Florida last year and had a successful Southern Hemisphere season in Argentina as well. His first foal, a filly out of Selective Memory [by Malibu Moon], is everything we hoped for and we couldn’t be more pleased with the other foals that are arriving.”
Verifying is standing the 2025 season for $10,000.
Return to the February 26 issue of Wire to Wire
