Broodmares Leslie's Lady, Win Approval join exclusive club

Breeders’ Cup winners comprise an exclusive club. Even more exclusive is the club broodmares Leslie’s Lady and Win Approval joined during the most recent renewal of the event.

Mendelssohn’s victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf on Friday and World Approval’s triumph in the Breeders’ Cup Mile on Saturday made Leslie’s Lady and Win Approval just the fourth and fifth mares, respectively, to have produced multiple individual winners in the 34-year history of the Breeders’ Cup. The duo joined Adena Springs’s Primal Force, dam of 1998 Classic winner Awesome Again and 2000 Juvenile winner Macho Uno; Juddmonte Farm’s Hasili, dam of 2001 Filly and Mare Turf winner Banks Hill and 2005 Filly and Mare Turf winner Intercontinental; and Marty and Pam Wygod’s Sweet Life, dam of 2004 Juvenile Fillies winner Sweet Catomine and 2009 Ladies’ Classic winner Life Is Sweet.

Clarkland Farm’s Leslie’s Lady, Kentucky’s reigning Broodmare of the Year, is the dam of Beholder, who won the 2012 Juvenile Fillies, 2013 Distaff, and 2016 Distaff in a storied career that earned her four Eclipse Awards. Leslie’s Lady also produced Grade 1 winner Into Mischief, now a leading juvenile sire. Mendelssohn, who topped the 2016 Keeneland September yearling sale when Coolmore went to $3 million to land him, joins those two as her third Grade 1 winner.

Now in the twilight of her broodmare career at age 21, Leslie’s Lady produced a Medaglia d’Oro colt this past April.

“At first, I wasn’t too excited, but he’s grown in well,” Clarkland’s Fred Mitchell said of the late-developing youngster. “He’s going to be a classy-looking yearling. He’s got a lot of leg underneath him. He’s something I think we’ll be proud of when we present him at the sale next year.”

The Tricky Creek mare is currently in foal to Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, and Clarkland may choose to retain the foal if it is a filly.

“Let’s just get a live, healthy foal,” Clarkland’s Marty Buckner said.

Win Approval has produced four millionaires, with World Approval following 2006 Mile winner and Eclipse champion Miesque’s Approval, Grade 1 winner Za Approval, and graded stakes winner Revved Up. The With Approval mare, now 25, resides as a pensioner at owner Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Stud.

“To have a foundation mare, it’s a privilege and an honor,” Weber said, crediting trainer Mark Casse for putting the finishing touches on World Approval. “I think I would say [her progeny are] all late bloomers, and you have to have a lot of patience with them. But if you do, then you get the results.”

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