Owner of 2 contenders has a preference for Stephen Foster

Since his family’s Lucky Seven Stable owns Smile Happy and Rattle N Roll, Mike Mackin might be the ultimate insider to offer intel on Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Stephen Foster Stakes at Ellis Park.

He would love to see them end up in a dead heat for first place. Knowing that was unlikely to happen, he did confide a rooting interest this week that was more specific.

“None of my siblings necessarily agree with me, but I’ve always liked Rattle N Roll a little bit better than Smile Happy just because he’s a hard knocker,” Mackin said. “He can run off of a week, two weeks. He goes out there every day, and he gives you what he’s got.”

Yet it is Smile Happy who was made the 3-1 morning-line favorite for the 1 1/8-mile race. His pace-chasing, two-length victory in the Alysheba (G2) on the Kentucky Oaks undercard earned him a 110 Beyer Speed Figure, according to Daily Racing Form. That was the best for any route race this year.

In their only head-to-head meeting in a race, Smile Happy finished second and Rattle N Roll a tiring sixth in last year’s Blue Grass (G1) at Keeneland. A three-race winning streak notwithstanding, Rattle N Roll is no better than a co-third choice at 4-1 in the program.

Still, Mackin clearly has a soft spot for Rattle N Roll.

“He’s not as flashy as Smile Happy,” he said on Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod. “He’s not as quick, but he puts everything out on that track every time he runs.”

Rattle N Roll reinforced his reputation for durability last out. That was June 3, when he won the Blame (G3) at Churchill Downs. That was only two weeks after he finished first in the Pimlico Special (G3) and six weeks after he won the Ben Ali (G3) at Keeneland. The 4-year-old colt by Connect who typically shows a closing style has a record of 18: 8-1-2 with $1,501,141 in earnings.

By contrast, Smile Happy is only 8: 4-2-1 with $1,019,890. The big gap in the Runhappy colt’s past performances came between his eighth-place finish in last year’s Kentucky Derby and an allowance victory in his 4-year-old debut March 16 at Oaklawn. The 10 months in between were spent healing some bruised bones.

“That pace in last year’s Derby was extremely fast,” said Mackin, a lifelong resident of Louisville, Ky. “That was way too fast for him to stay up where (jockey) Corey (Lanerie) and we wanted him to be. He came out of it kind of sore. We made the decision, because we thought he was a real nice horse, to give him most of the rest of the year off, let him grow up some and run him as a 4-year-old.”

If not for some traffic in the Oaklawn Mile (G3) three months ago, Smile Happy also might have a three-race winning streak. Instead, he was third that day in Arkansas. After Francisco Arrieta and Brian Hernandez Jr. rode him early this year, Smile Happy will be reunited Saturday with Lanerie.

Hernandez will keep his regular assignment on Rattle N Roll. Mackin warned handicappers against reading anything into that, especially since he and trainer Kenny McPeek discussed this long before the Stephen Foster. Long before the two colts turned 4.

“If we were going to get both these horses on the Derby trail, Brian can’t ride them both,” Mackin said, remembering a conversation from the fall of 2021. “Kenny had Tiz the Bomb on the Derby trail that year also. We kind of had to figure out who else was going to ride Smile Happy, and if it was going to be Brian, who else was going to ride Rattle N Roll? Kenny made the decision to bring Corey onto Smile Happy back then.”

As McPeek’s first-call jockey, Hernandez got to ride Smile Happy in the Alysheba because he was available. With the two horses in the same race this weekend, Mackin said the riding assignments were an easy decision.

“Corey knows Smile Happy, and Brian knows Rattle N Roll,” Mackin said. “It’s just more history than picking for this race.”

The Stephen Foster represents another step up the racing ladder for a family who came up with Lucky Seven three decades ago as a name emblematic of two parents and five children, of whom Mackin is one. A generation later, the family has grown, and so have its ambitions. The stable went from breeding its own racehorses to buying them, finally getting to its first Kentucky Derby last year.

“When Ken and I go to the sales, we’d like to get a Derby horse or a Breeders’ Cup horse,” said Mackin, who also runs a steel and aluminum business. “We buy other horses, too, that we look to just have some fun with and race and hopefully make a little bit of money. ... We’re not the kind of buyer that’s going to go out and buy the $1 million, blue-blood, fancy horse and pin all our hopes on that. We like to buy horses in the ($100,000-$250,000) range, and we bought some even for less than that.”

At yearling sales in 2020, the Mackins paid $185,000 for Smile Happy and $210,000 for Rattle N Roll.

“We’re all getting a little bit older,” Mackin, 63, said. “Buying yearlings is a little bit quicker of a return into the game than breeding. ... We didn’t breed for the sales. We bred to race.”

But race two millionaires against one another in the same big stakes? A month ago McPeek called the dilemma “a high-level problem.”

Smile Happy always was bound for the Stephen Foster. The plans for Rattle N Roll had him pointed next Saturday to Belmont Park or Prairie Meadows.

“We were kind of thinking we were going to run Rattle N Roll in the Suburban (G2) next week,” Mackin said. “Or the Cornhusker is also next weekend. When Kenny and I sat down and started doing the math, a second place in the Stephen Foster ($194,000) is basically the same money as first place in the Suburban ($192,500) and actually a little bit more than first place in the Cornhusker ($180,000). And we don’t have to travel, so we decided to stay home and put both of them in.”

An exacta in the Stephen Foster would be worth $795,400 to the Mackins if the first two across the line are the wearing black silks with 7s in red circles. It probably means Smile Happy staying within striking distance of an early pace set by the likes of West Will Power (7-2), Stilleto Boy (6-1) and Speed Bias (12-1). That same pace would need to be fast for Rattle N Roll to close into late.

“Rattle N Roll needs the race to set up for him where Smile Happy doesn’t,” Mackin said. “Smile Happy can go out not necessarily on the lead but be up there close like he did in the Alysheba.”

If all goes well for Smile Happy and/or Rattle N Roll on Saturday, will there be a big family gathering in the Ellis Park winner’s circle to celebrate the Grade 1 win that comes with a berth in the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Classic?

“No,” Mackin said. “Just my brother Craig and I.”

Then he thought about it some more.

“And some of our siblings. And some of my children and his children. It’ll be a crowd.”