'Lemons' Keeps Bearing Fruit for Stewart

You'll never convince Dallas Stewart that getting a Lemon is bad.

When Forever Unbridled (Unbridled's Song) won Sam Houston Race Park's $400,000 GIII Houston Ladies Classic S. Saturday night, it was just the latest example of how the mare Lemons Forever (Lemon Drop Kid) keeps bearing fruit for the 56-year-old trainer and his family.

Lemons Forever gave Stewart what ranks so far as the most memorable win of his 18-year training career, in the 2006 GI Kentucky Oaks in his adopted hometown of Louisville at odds of 47-1. The filly's $96.20 win mutuel after rallying from last of 14 remains a record in America's biggest race for 3-year-old fillies.

Now Stewart has won multiple stakes with two of Lemons Forever's daughters, with last summer's GI Ballerina S. winner Unbridled Forever–also by the late Unbridled's Song.

“She's just an outstanding broodmare,” Stewart said recently at his Fair Grounds winter base. “These horses are very, very nice horses, competing at the top level. She means a lot to me… She's made my family a lot of money.”

Stewart says he really doesn't bet his horses and didn't cash big at the windows that day (though apparently a lot of kids old enough to wager did, judging from the anecdotal evidence coming out of a Louisville's Trinity High School, where Stewart's son Wes and jockey Mark Guidry's son Mecus were students).

“Lemon, that was a crazy time,” said Stewart's wife, Yvette. “We still have people we run into and they'll tell us, 'I put an addition on my house with Lemons Forever when I won that money.' And, 'This is our Lemons Forever room.'… It's been a fun ride. We were very lucky and blessed to get that.”

Dallas Stewart had more than his training commission on the line. When he picked Lemons Forever out as a $140,000 Keeneland September yearling for owner Willis Horton's family, he liked her so much that he bought a piece of her. Not only did the filly run out $648,940, the real windfall came when Lemons Forever sold for $2.5 million at Keeneland's 2007 November auction.

If nothing else happened, the Stewarts would be forever indebted to Lemons Forever.

“It helped put the kids through school,” Yvette said, adding of their younger son, “Cole's still in high school and he still has college, but we were able to put some money in that. We've really been lucky with that bloodline.”

The buyer at Keeneland was Charles Fipke, the multi-millionaire geologist who developed Canada's first diamond mine. Stewart had never met the owner until that day.

“Chuck saw her at the sale and fell in love with her,” Stewart said. “When he bought her, I went over to see him. He was kind of laughing and saying how expensive she was, and I said, 'Man, I've got a lot of kids to feed.' He liked that. He's got about five or six kids, and he said, 'You know what? I might send you some horses.'”

Those horses have included 2013 Kentucky Derby runner-up Golden Soul and 2015 Preakness second Tale of Verve, homebreds by Fipke-campaigned stallions Perfect Soul and Tale of Ekati (named after the Canadian diamond mine), respectively.

After two foals by Perfect Soul (Perfect Forever and Forever Perfect), the longtime prospector struck gold in breeding Lemons Forever to Unbridled's Song.

Unbridled Forever is a three-time stakes winner who also was second in the GI TVG Coaching Club American Oaks and GII Indiana Oaks, along with third in the GI Kentucky Oaks, GI Acorn S. and GII Fair Grounds Oaks while earning $805,257.

A minor injury kept her out of the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint at Keeneland. Fipke couldn't be reached for this story, but Stewart said he believes the plan is to breed Lemons Forever this year to Medaglia d'Oro, by whom she has two colts.

Forever Unbridled won the Fair Grounds' listed Silverbulletday S. off a maiden victory last year, then took in the GIII Rachel Alexandra S. and Fair Grounds Oaks. She got time off after finishing 11th in the Kentucky Oaks and won Aqueduct's

GIII Comely S. in her second start back two months ago.

Asked if he ever finds himself mixing up the names of Unbridled Forever and Forever Unbridled, Dallas Stewart said with a laugh, “Absolutely,” adding that one really has to pay attention when entering races.

“He names a lot of his horses with the mare and the sires,” he said of Fipke. “He's got so many, so I think he does that to keep track of them.”

Hence, Lemons Forever's unraced, but promising 3-year-old Medaglia d'Oro colt is Forever d'Oro. Her yearling colt by the same stallion is odds-on to be named d'Oro Forever–and quite likely to be a stakes winner.