Derby pedigrees: Can Soup and Sandwich handle the distance?

Soup and Sandwich started his career in January, dominating maidens by 7 1/4 lengths in a 6 1/2-furlong maiden event. The Mark Casse trainee followed up with a 2 3/4-length victory over two rivals in a mile and forty-yard allowance race at Tampa Bay Downs. Soup and Sandwich has two wins and a second-place finish in three starts, with earnings of $203,875. The Live Oak Plantation homebred has 40 qualifying points and is in 13th place on the Derby leaderboard.

Pedigree: Soup and Sandwich (Into Mischief – Souper Scoop, by Tapit) has a middle-distance pedigree. He strongly resembles his damsire physically and mentally. He didn’t switch leads in the stretch of the Florida Derby. (See the Soup and Sandwich pedigree chart).

Into Mischief is consistently a top-five leading sire. Out of 60 graded/listed winners, three – Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Authentic, Super Derby (G2) winner Vicar’s in Trouble and Pan American (G2) turf router Bema’s Boy – are winners at 10 furlongs. Into Mischief also is represented by Mandaloun and Highly Motivated in the Kentucky Derby.

The blacktype earners in Soup and Sandwich’s female family are composed mostly of sprinter/miler types, with the occasional stakes-placed runner at nine furlongs.

Soup and Sandwich is the second foal and first to race out of the allowance-class miler Souper Scoop. The gray daughter of Tapit hit the board in six of 14 starts, earning $85,556 as a dirt miler, primarily at Monmouth Park.

Souper Scoop’s half-sister, the multiple stakes-winning sprinter/miler Coolwind (Forest Wildcat), set the bar for producing stakes winners in this family. She bore Iowa Derby (G3) winner Looking Cool and stakes-placed sprinter No Sweat.

The multiple stakes-placed sprinter Bustin Hoffman is a son of Souper Scoop’s half-sister, Wallingford.

Soup and Sandwich’s second dam Scoop captured the Indiana Breeders’ Cup Oaks (G3) at 1 1/16-miles and placed in the Singapore Plate (G3) at nine furlongs behind Caressing.

Soup and Sandwich’s extended family includes multiple graded stakes-winning sprinter/miler Sara Louise and her daughter, Sara Street, who placed in the 2018 Gazelle Stakes (G2) and Ladies Handicap, both at nine furlongs.

42 stakes winners represent Tapit as a damsire. Only Harvey's Lil Goil has won at nine furlongs, and none have been successful past that distance.

The Into Mischief/Tapit cross is popular. There have been 10 winners from 13 starters and one stakes winner, Travieza, who captured the 2018 Unzip Me Stakes as a turf sprinter. Besides Soup and Sandwich, other stakes-placed runners on this cross include Grade 2-placed miler Just a Smidge and turf miler Nate Nite Mischief.