2009 Sanford Stakes Winner
Sire: Smarty Jones
Grandsire: Elusive Quality
Dam: Apasionata Sonata
Damsire: Affirmed
Notable Relatives: Bsharpsonata (Half-Brother)
Sex: Male
Foaled: 2007
Country: United States
Colour: Chestnut with blaze and three white socks
Breeder: Cloverleaf Farms II, Inc.
Owner: Gold Mark Farm LLC
Trainer: Thomas M. Amoss
Jockey: A. R. Napravnik
Record: 15 Starts: 4 - 4 - 3
Earnings: Over $405,051
Major races: Bashford Manor Stakes (2009), Sanford Stakes (2009), Sportsman's Paradise Stakes (2010)
Post-racing career: Entered stud in 2012 at Vinery Florida, 2013 standing at Bridlewood Farm FL, 2018 at GoldMark Farm, Fla., 2020 at Oakton Farm Stallions, FL, and 2021 at Stormborne Stallions, Citra FL
Some pedigrees read like a who's-who of recent classic history, and Backtalk's was one of them. A bay colt foaled in Florida in 2007, he was sired by Smarty Jones, the immensely popular winner of the 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness whose Triple Crown bid ended a length short in the Belmont, out of the Affirmed mare Apasionata Sonata — pairing the 2004 classic hero on top with the 1978 Triple Crown winner as broodmare sire. It was the kind of cross that breeders love and that occasionally announces itself loudly on the racetrack. Trained by Thomas M. Amoss, Backtalk was sent out as a juvenile in 2009 and made his pedigree look prophetic in a hurry.
His two-year-old season was where his reputation lived. He took the Bashford Manor Stakes (G3) at Churchill Downs and then traveled north to Saratoga in August 2009 to win the Sanford Stakes (G2), the historic six-furlong sprint that has launched the careers of Man o' War, Affirmed, and dozens of other names worth remembering. He returned at three but never quite recaptured that Saratoga form, and his older campaign was lighter still. He retired in 2011 with a career anchored by his juvenile graded scores and a useful black-type page beneath them — short of a Grade 1, but plenty enough to attract commercial breeders to a son of Smarty Jones with classic-winning blood close up on both sides.
He took up stallion duties in Florida, standing at Vinery Florida and Bridlewood Farm before moving to GoldMark Farm near Ocala, where his runners began appearing on the Florida-bred stakes pages. Among his stud-book successes was the multiple stakes winner Soutache. Backtalk's story isn't the headline kind — no classic finish, no big-money dirt highlight reel — but his is the more common American racing narrative: a sharp two-year-old with a glittering pedigree who ran his best races at the right time and parlayed it into a regional sire career.
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