Leslie's Lady, dam of Beholder and Into Mischief, dead at 26

Broodmare of the Year Leslie’s Lady, whose legacy continues to impact racing through son Into Mischief, died early Monday at her longtime home, Clarkland Farm in Lexington, Ky. The daughter of Tricky Creek was 26.

Leslie’s Lady, whose death was first reported by the Blood-Horse, had been pensioned since delivering her final foal, the Kantharos filly Love You Irene, in May 2020. She resided with fellow pensioner Hidden Assets at Clarkland and was buried on the farm.

Leslie’s Lady was bred in Kentucky by David E. Hager II and purchased by James T. Hines Jr. for $27,000 out of the 1997 Keeneland September yearling sale. She won 5 of 28 starts in Hines’s colors, highlighted by the 1998 Hoosier Debutante Stakes in Indiana, before beginning her broodmare career for him. That broodmare career would ultimately see her produce 15 foals; nine have started to date, with seven winners, three of those Grade 1 winners. Her success earned her Kentucky’s Broodmare of the Year title in 2016.

“She’s a good mother,” Marty Buckner, who managed Clarkland with her father, Fred Mitchell, previously said of the mare. “She takes care of them, which is important. I think mares kind of teach them things.”

Hines died in February 2006 and his stock was dispersed, with Leslie’s Lady going to the ring at the 2006 Keeneland November breeding stock sale on behalf of his estate. Fred Mitchell and his late wife, Nancy, took Leslie’s Lady home to Clarkland for a relatively modest $100,000, and her stock immediately skyrocketed.

The following March, Spendthrift Farm purchased her juvenile Harlan’s Holiday colt for $180,000 in Ocala, Fla. That colt was Grade 1 CashCall Futurity winner Into Mischief. He recently claimed his third consecutive North American leading sire title for Spendthrift, breaking his own single-season earnings record, and is emerging as a standout young sire of sires.

Spendthrift snapped up Leslie’s Lady’s filly by Henny Hughes for $180,000, still a relative bargain, out of the 2011 Keeneland September yearling sale. That filly was Beholder, who earned Eclipse Awards as the outstanding 2-year-old female of 2012, 3-year-old female of 2013, and older female of 2015 and 2016. She banked $6,156,600 while winning 11 Grade 1 stakes, including a trio of Breeders’ Cup races – the 2012 Juvenile Fillies, 2013 Distaff, and, in a dramatic conclusion to her career, the 2016 Distaff by a nose over champion Songbird. Other highlights included a victory in the 2015 Pacific Classic against males.

Following those successes, Leslie’s Lady’s son Mendelssohn, by Scat Daddy, sold to Coolmore for a sale-topping $3 million at the 2016 Keeneland September sale. The colt was Group 1-placed in England as a juvenile before making his first trans-Atlantic trip to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. He handled a switch to dirt with aplomb as he romped in the Group 2 UAE Derby the following spring, finished second in the Grade 1 Travers Stakes, and third in the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Mendelssohn was one of three seven-figure yearlings out of his dam, with the most expensive being the ill-fated America’s Joy. The daughter of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah sold for $8.2 million to Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm at the 2019 Keeneland September yearling sale. That was the highest price ever paid for a filly at North America’s bellwether yearling auction and is tied for the sale’s fourth-highest price all-time. America’s Joy died from injuries sustained at the conclusion of a work last August at Saratoga while preparing for her scheduled first start on the track’s closing weekend.

Although Clarkland sent most of Leslie’s Lady’s progeny to the sales as a matter of business, the farm retained the mare’s final two foals, the fillies Marr Time and the newly turned juvenile Love You Irene, in order to keep her lines prominent in the broodmare band.

“The farm has been in the family since 1774 and it’ll be there for the children for the rest of their lives,” Fred Mitchell previously said. “We’re keeping two fillies out of the old mare . . . The fillies will stay there for the kids and grandkids.”

Leslie’s Lady’s penultimate daughter was the Not This Time filly Marr Time, who started twice last year as a juvenile for trainer Brad Cox. Marr Time won her debut in October at Keeneland, but then was eighth under allowance conditions in December at Oaklawn after she was fractious at the gate and broke poorly.

Three of Leslie’s Lady’s daughters already have stakes performers on their own résumés, adding to the mare’s influence and boding well for her daughters and Clarkland. Daisy Mason is the dam of Grade 3-placed stakes winner Harry’s Holiday and Grade 3-placed Remedy; Victory Party is the dam of Australian Group 2-placed Victory Kingdom; and Judy B is the dam of stakes-placed Sarah Her Highness. Her most celebrated daughter, Beholder, is the dam of three foals of racing age, including a newly turned juvenile; her first starter, Q B One, was sixth on debut in December at Santa Anita.

Led by Into Mischief, sire of Eclipse champions Authentic, Covfefe, and Gamine, Leslie’s Lady is represented by three sons at stud. Unraced Curlin to Mischief, standing at Rancho San Miguel, was among California’s leading freshman sires of 2019 and has two career stakes winners. Mendelssohn, standing at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky, will have his first juveniles on the track this year.