Lady Eli Officially Retired, To Visit War Front

After considering the possibility of racing their star mare this year, co-owners Jay Hanley and Sol Kumin, partners in the Sheep Pond Partners stable, have decided to retire Lady Eli (Divine Park–Sacre Coeur, by Saint Ballado). She will be bred to War Front and then sold at the 2018 Keeneland November Breeding Stock sale as part John Sikura's Hill 'n' Dale consignment.

Following a seventh-place finish in the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf, Lady Eli was entered in the 2017 Keeneland sale, but had to be withdrawn when coming out of the race with lacerations and a puncture wound, which required rest and treatment. The mare recovered quickly, which opened up the option of racing her in 2018, something, Kumin said, the partnership seriously considered.

“Honestly, It was a hard decision,” Kumin said. “Going into the Breeders' Cup, [trainer] Chad [Brown] kept telling me this was the best she had ever trained. [Jockey] Irad [Ortiz Jr.] got off her after her last two breezes and said this is the most loaded he had ever seen her. They were so excited about how she was doing. Obviously, nothing went according to plan. We sent her to the farm and she got well pretty quickly and now we're sitting there saying, 'Man, what should we do?' The hard part for us was she always had told us what she wanted to do. When she was sick [with laminitis] we didn't feel any pressure to bring her back to the races, but we could tell she always wanted to do more. We let her tell us. This time we kind of took the decision away from her. We made it and it was a hard thing to do because she loved what she did. We went back and forth. Recently, we thought we should send her back to Chad with no pressure and just see what happens. We went through every different scenario and did a lot of research on 6-year-old mares. We were pretty sure she could do it but at end of day we just felt like she had done enough and that we did not want to risk anything happening to her after everything she had been through.”

Lady Eli retired with a record of 10 wins from 14 starts and nine stakes victories. She won five Grade I races, which includes a streak of Grade I wins in each of the four years that she campaigned, and bankrolled $2,959,800. But she may be best known for how she overcame a bout with laminitis, which is often fatal, that hit her after her win in the 2015 GI Belmont Oaks Invitational. At the time, she was undefeated.

“She meant so much to me personally, to our partnership, to my family and to all her fans across the world,” Hanley said. “She went through so much. We would get letters from people, people talking about her strength, determination and perseverance. She became a ray of hope for people who were going through situations where they faced insurmountable odds. She served as an example to those people of how one can overcome the odds. She fought that battle and won, and you can't even begin to explain how special that is.”

After being away for more than 13 months due to the laminitis, Lady Eli came back to finish second in the 2016 GII Ballston Spa at Saratoga, but any thoughts that she may not be the same horse were put to rest when she won the GI Flower Bowl Invitational S. in her next start.

She returned in 2017 at five and won her first three starts, including the GI Gamely S. and the GI Diana S. She was in line to clinch an Eclipse Award as the nation's outstanding turf female with a win in the Breeders' Cup, but her chances were compromised by her injury. Despite the loss, she is still a major contender for an Eclipse, and Hanley made no secret that championship honors is something he wants added to his mare's resume.

“It's very important,” he said. “Every owner wants to see their horses named champion and if there's ever a horse that deserves to be a champion it is her. She was arguably coming into her peak at three and she was dominant in the Belmont Oaks and did it without breaking a sweat. We were thinking at the time we would have a Zenyatta-type horse, one who might go undefeated in 20 career starts. Then the next day she came down with the laminitis. I think that if that never happened she would have won multiple championships. It's important for her and the sport that she gets crowned a champion.”

Hanley said that the decision to breed to War Front was a reflection not only of his quality as a sire but because he is, the owner says, a good physical fit for Lady Eli. He added that since Lady Eli did her running on the grass it only made sense to breed to a sire who is considered among the best turf sires in North America.

Hanley and Kumin still own several top horses and have formed one of the more successful partnerships in racing, but Kumin admitted that, for them, 2018 is unlikely to equal any of the years when they had Lady Eli in the barn.

“We'll see what the year brings,” he said. “It's definitely starting off on a different kind of note. She'll be a hard one to replace.”