Mendelssohn

Yes, despite everything, life really is good. I know that the industry press is currently saturated with the contention of attorneys, rather than racehorses. And I know that our sport, in the process, is squandering much of the cultural capital that should instead have been invested in the two compelling talents squaring up at Gulfstream Saturday. Yet perhaps one of the protagonists will not just put all these tawdry sagas aside, however briefly, but also pay a timely tribute to a mare who could get anyone interested in the game....

Clarkland Farm's 2016 Broodmare of the Year Leslie's Lady (Tricky Creek--Crystal Lady, by Stop the Music), whose produce include leading sire Into Mischief (Harlan's Holiday) and four-time Eclipse Award winner Beholder (Henny Hughes), died Jan. 24 at the farm, the Blood-Horse reports. She was 26 years old. Bred in Kentucky by David Hager II, Leslie's Lady was an $8,000 short yearling purchase from Hager's Idle Hour Farm at Keeneland January in 1997 and was acquired by owner James T. Hines for $27,000 from the Margaux Farm draft at the Keeneland...

With the 2022 breeding season right around the corner, we will feature a series of breeders' mating plans over the coming weeks. Today we have John Greathouse III of Glencrest Farm. INCREDIBLE YOU (m, 4, Uncle Mo--Zoftig, by Cozzene), to be bred to Charlatan Incredible You is one of my best-bred mares. She is out of Zoftig, who successfully raced under the Glencrest colors before being sold and having an even better career as a broodmare. Incredible You is currently in foal to Authentic due at the end of January....

Clarkland Farm homebred MARR TIME (Not This Time), the penultimate foal out of outstanding blue hen Leslie's Lady (Tricky Creek), made her debut a winning one at Keeneland and earned the 'TDN Rising Star' tag in the process. Showing good early speed, the 3-5 chalk sparred with 20-1 longshot Roll Baby (Runhappy) through a :22.84 opening quarter. Shaking off that foe on the backstretch, the bay jumped clear in the lane to win going away by 2 3/4 lengths. Dame Joviale (Into Mischief) was the runner-up. Marr Time is the...

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 5th-KEE, $84k, Msw, 2yo, f, 6f, 3:08 p.m. ET One of the most prolific broodmares of the 21st century will be represented by her penultimate foal Thursday at Keeneland when MARR TIME (Not This Time--Leslie's Lady) opens her account for Clarkland Farm and Brad Cox in this sprint. Famously the producer of international superstar stallion Into Mischief (Harlan's Holiday), four-time champion Beholder (Henny Hughes) and GISW multimillionaire Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy), the now 25-year-old Leslie's Lady was retired from breeding after foaling a Kantharos filly last...

TIMONIUM, MD - The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearlings Sale streamrolled to its conclusion Tuesday, ending its two-day run in Timonium with figures up across the board and six-figure transactions right through the very last horses through the ring. Through the sale's two sessions, 381 yearlings sold for $11,269,400 for an average of $29,578 and a median of $20,000. With 75 horses reported not sold, the buy-back rate was 16.4%. In 2020, 379 yearlings grossed $9,120,700 for an average of $24,065 and a median of $14,000. The buy-back rate was 21.7%....

TIMONIUM, MD - Buyers had every right to expect competitive bidding during Monday's first session of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearlings Sale--with normal Maryland shoppers joined by bidders shut out at previous sales--and the arena did not disappoint. By the close of business Monday, 149 yearlings grossed $4,577,300. The average was $30,720 and the median was $20,000. During the sale's first session in 2020, 122 yearlings sold for a total of $2,983,600. The session average was $24,456, the median was $15,000, and the buy-back rate was 24.7%. "It was a...

There are folks who sound like broken records when it comes to first-crop sires, complaining that breeders who use them and buyers purchasing those yearlings at auction are about as foolish as dunk-tank clowns. However, when one of those sires succeeds with his first 2-year-olds, those same people are usually the first to wax eloquent with platitudes, forgetting what they'd said earlier. That's human nature, I suppose. What they forget is that all sires start out with first crops, and there are people on the other end that wildcat for...

by Jessica Martini & Christie DeBernardis LEXINGTON, KY - Bidding was fast and frenetic when the first of two Book 2 sessions of the Keeneland September Yearling Sale opened Wednesday in Lexington, producing the auction's highest-priced offering yet when a colt by City of Light (hip 612) sold for $1.7 million to the partnership of Woodford Racing, Talla Racing and West Point Thoroughbreds. "That was amazing," an ebullient Keeneland vice president of sales Tony Lacy said at the close of business Wednesday. "That was one of the best sale days...

When regally-bred Grade I winner Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy-Leslie's Lady, by Tricky Creek) joined the stallion roster at Ashford Stud in 2019, his half-brother Into Mischief had just received a bump in stud fee from $100,000 to $150,000 at nearby Spendthrift Farm. The next year, as Mendelssohn's first foals were hitting the ground, Into Mischief was represented by GI Kentucky Derby hero and eventual Horse of the Year Authentic. Today, as Into Mischief is now widely regarded as the leading stallion in the world, Mendelssohn awaits the day when his first...

"Leslie's Lady is retired," Clarkland Farm's Fred Mitchell reported. "And she is happy, fat and dappled." The 2016 Broodmare of the Year has produced two fillies following America's Joy (American Pharoah), a now three-year-old half-sister to GISWs Into Mischief, Beholder and Mendelssohn and the highest-priced yearling filly in Keeneland sales history. While Leslie's Lady is now 25, a good deal of thought went into the decision to officially retire her this spring. [Elite_video_player id="2" html5videos_hd="https://player.vimeo.com/external/560131973.sd.mp4?s=dd27449f028dc19beaadfc3f379b7aba219b47b6&profile_id=165" html5videos_videoThumbnails_jpg="" html5videos_title="Fred Mitchell and Leslies Lady" prerolls="https://player.vimeo.com/external/488087819.sd.mp4?s=902aa8d5fc7cddb1f9c4423d869f0f3bd1bc6402&profile_id=165"] "Early on in the season she was all...

No matter how ugly racing can get over here on our dirt tracks, most recently highlighted by the Gl Kentucky Derby betamethasone positive of the Bob Baffert-trained Medina Spirit (Protonico), North American pedigrees have to be reckoned with wherever racing is conducted at the highest levels, and that includes on turf in Japan (Sunday Silence) and Australasia (Danehill) in addition to Europe (Sadler's Wells). No one knows this better than the Coolmore partners, headed by maestro John Magnier, who learned this lesson decades ago on American buying sprees as the...