Lady Eli to be offered at Keeneland November

Multiple Grade 1 winner Lady Eli will be offered at this year’s Keeneland November breeding stock sale, just days after an expected start at the Breeders’ Cup.

The 5-year-old Divine Park mare will be consigned by Hill ‘n’ Dale Sales, as agent for owner Sheep Pond Partners.

"It is an honor and a privilege to consign a mare of the caliber of Lady Eli,” John G. Sikura, president of Hill ‘n‘ Dale Farms, said in a release. "Not only is she uniquely accomplished, winning Grade 1 races at 2, 3, 4, and 5, but her courage exemplifies what we love about Thoroughbreds. She is class personified and the best of the best. I hope she can win another Breeders’ Cup, as well as the Eclipse Award she richly deserves."

Lady Eli, trained by Chad Brown, has won 9 of 12 starts for earnings of $2,719,800. She has won seven graded stakes races, highlighted by Grade 1 scores in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, 2015 Belmont Oaks, 2016 Flower Bowl Stakes, and this year’s Gamely Stakes and Diana Stakes. She also won the Miss Grillo Stakes and Appalachian Stakes, both Grade 1 events, and was a close second in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.

The mare’s greatest accomplishment is, arguably, overcoming a life-threatening bout of laminitis and returning to the track from a yearlong absence to compete once again at a graded stakes level.

Lady Eli was cataloged for last year’s Keeneland November sale, but Sheep Pond withdrew her from the sale and returned her to training for another season.

Bred in Kentucky by Runnymede Farm and Catesby Clay, Lady Eli is out of the winning Saint Ballado mare Sacre Coeur, whose four winners from seven runners also include Grade 3 winner Bizzy Caroline. She is from the family of Canadian champion Spring in the Air, Grade/Group 1 winners Palace Episode and Sweet Loretta, Grade 2 winners Laughing Lashes, Changing Ways, Pays to Dream, Tejano Run and More Royal, and Grade 3 winners Jacorda, and Jacorda’s Devil.