Catching Up With Lemons Forever

Lemons Forever wins the 2006 Kentucky Oaks at odds of 47.10-to-1. (Photo by HorsePhotos)
Lemons Forever made history in the 2006 Kentucky Oaks and now that she is a broodmare, she’s attempting to make even more history with two of her early foals running in the Kentucky Oaks.
Graded stakes-winning mares aren’t often followed so soon in their broodmare career by graded stakes-caliber foals but Lemons Forever isn’t a stranger to beating the odds. The Lemon Drop Kid mare went off at 47.10-to-1 in a full field of 14 in the 2006 Kentucky Oaks. Closing from last position, Lemons Forever pulled the biggest upset in the history of the race when winning by 1 ½ lengths. The win was her first ever stakes victory and the first Kentucky Oaks win for trainer and co-owner Dallas Stewart.
“It's a once in a lifetime thing,” Stewart told the Blood-Horse. "I can't wait to get back to the barn and give her a kiss and a peppermint. You know, to pick her out at the sale and buy a piece of her, and have the owners stick with you, this is everything you could ask for," Stewart added. "This is what horse racing is all about. I was crying at the eighth pole."
LEMONS FOREVER AFTER HER OAKS WIN

Photo by HorsePhotos
Next up for Lemons Forever was the Mother Goose, where she went off as the favorite for only the second time in her career. Again, she was far behind the leaders, sitting 9 ½ lengths off the leader at the first call but didn’t have the same response she’d had in the Oaks, finishing fourth. The filly had the same luck in the Coaching Club American Oaks, finishing fourth again in that race.
Lemons Forever was back on the board in the Alabama Stakes with a third-place finish and finished the year with a pair of fifths, including in her season finale the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
After a five-month break, Lemons Forever returned for her 4-year-old campaign. But it took her four runs to get back into the racing groove, with her first win since the Kentucky Oaks coming in an optional claiming race over the turf at Churchill Downs in June.  The race seemed like a minor stakes race with a Grade 1 winner finishing third and three other stakes placed mares also running in addition to Lemons Forever.
Moving back to graded stakes company in her next start, Lemons Forever finished fourth on the turf in the Locust Grove Handicap in July. The race was the end of her career with her winning four of her 16 runs with $648,940 in earnings.
A few months later, Lemons Forever went through the auction ring at Keeneland, where she brought $2.5 million. The price was the seventh-highest of the sale and R.J. Bennett, the agent for Charles Fipke signed the ticket. Soon after, Fipke announced Lemons Forever would be visiting his stallion Perfect Soul.
"The Sadler's Wells [Perfect Soul’s sire] - Kingmambo [grandsire of Lemons Forever] cross is probably the best nick in the world," Fipke told Brisnet. "There's a lot of speed in her pedigree, so she'll be perfect for Perfect Soul. She's flawless; perfectly correct and very well balanced."
That first foal from the cross was named Perfect Forever and raced for two seasons. While the filly never won a race, she finished on the board six times in 12 starts. Retired at the end of 2013, Perfect Forever visited the same sale her dam had gone through seven years before and brought a final bid of $475,000, not enough to buy her from Charles Fipke. Perfect Forever was carrying a Mineshaft foal when she went through the ring and is due later this year.
A full brother to Perfect Forever named Forever Perfect was born the following year and had a little more success than his sister. Forever Perfect took seven starts to break his maiden but once he did, won two straight races before being retired in July of 2013. The colt went through the Fasig-Tipton ring early in 2014 and sold to Glenn McKibben.
But Lemons Forever’s next two foals were where the mare has hit it big so far.
Unbridled Forever was the first of two full-sisters out of the mare and by Unbridled’s Song. The filly broke her maiden in her second start by 5 ¼ lengths at Churchill Downs and headed down the Kentucky Oaks trail. Her first start on the trail was a successful one when she won the Silverbulletday Stakes by 1 ½ lengths at even-money odds. Next up was the Fair Grounds Oaks where Unbridled Forever ran into a monster named Untapable but still finished third and punched her ticket to the Kentucky Oaks.
UNBRIDLED FOREVER

Photo by Eclipse Sportswire
Unbridled Forever spent the late spring and summer doing well enough to hit the board with third place finishes in the Kentucky Oaks and Acorn Stakes and finishing second in the Coaching Club American Oaks, in addition to a second-place finish in the Indiana Oaks in October. She ended her season with a competitive fifth place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, ahead of some of the top older females in the United States.
Forever Unbridled followed her full-sister’s hoofprints as a 2-year-old, winning her second start. Since then she has tried to live up to her sister’s stakes performances and has done a decent job. While she was second in the Silverbulletday Stakes at the Fair Grounds earlier this year, she followed that up with two third-place finishes in the Fair Grounds Kentucky Oaks prep races, including the Fair Grounds Oaks on March 28.  The filly looks like she is headed to the Kentucky Oaks like her sister, currently ranking 10th on the Road to the Kentucky Oaks leaderboard.
Coming up this year, Lemons Forever has a 2-year-old colt by Medaglia d’Oro named Forever d’Oro. She doesn’t have a yearling, but was bred to Medgalia d’Oro again for a 2015 foal and if Fipke’s trend of naming Lemons Forever’s foals similarly to their full siblings stays intact, that foal will be named D’Oro Forever.