Marr Time Another Promising Runner for Leslie's Lady

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Marr Time Another Promising Runner for Leslie's Lady
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Photo: Keeneland/Coady Photography
Marr Time scores in her debut at Keeneland

She has a chance to do something her famous mother couldn't—win at Oaklawn Park.

Debut Keeneland winner Marr Time , trained by Brad Cox for owner/breeder Clarkland Farm, is entered in the sixth race Dec. 19 at the Arkansas track, an entry-level allowance sprint for 2-year-old fillies. Marr Time is by the top young sire Not This Time  , but it's her dam's name that turns heads. She is out of Leslie's Lady , making her a half-sister to four-time Eclipse Award winner and future Hall of Famer Beholder , super sire Into Mischief  , and grade 1 winner and sire Mendelssohn  .

Marr Time, as the 3-5 favorite, was a front-running 2 3/4-length winner of her Oct. 28 career debut at Keeneland. Florent Geroux, Oaklawn's leading rider through the first six days of the 2021-2022 meeting, has the return call on the filly, who is scheduled to break from post 2 in the projected eight-horse field. 

"Marr Time, she's obviously got a big pedigree," Cox said Dec. 16. "Fast filly. Hopeful that this is the next step to stretching her out. We like her. She's pretty classy."

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She has worked twice at Oaklawn in advance of her local debut. She recorded a five-furlong bullet in :59 3/5 Dec. 5 and covered a half-mile in :48 2/5 Dec. 12. 

"She's a big, beautiful filly," Cox said. "We'll see how it goes."

Marr Time is the 5-2 morning-line favorite Sunday, just ahead of Lady Scarlet  at 3-1. She will be racing on the diuretic Lasix Sunday, as will all of her seven competitors. Lasix, used to control respiratory bleeding in horses, is not permitted in juvenile races in Kentucky, where is a phase-out of race-day medication is underway.

Leslie's Lady ran in three sprints at the 1999 Oaklawn meeting for Bob Holthus, Oaklawn's all-time leading trainer, and owner James T. Hines Jr. A daughter of Tricky Creek, she finished second to stablemate The Happy Hopper  in the $50,000 Martha Washington Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, fifth as the heavy favorite in an allowance event and fourth in the $35,000 America's First Lady Stakes. 

Clarkland Farm purchased Leslie's Lady for $100,000 at the 2006 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale from the Estate of James T. Hines Jr. She was named 2016 Broodmare of the Year by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association and Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders. Now age 25, she was pensioned last spring, with Marr Time her penultimate foal. 

Fred Mitchell and his late wife, Nancy Carroll Marr Mitchell, who died Nov. 3, have long headed Clarkland Farm.

This year Fred Mitchell explained the reason for the filly's name: "My wife's father was John Wesley Marr. When the time changed, he would never change his clocks, and we always stayed on central time. So about this time of the year, we'd always be (an hour) behind. So with her being by Not This Time, we chose Marr Time. It'll be a nice memory for the kids and the grandkids to have, and she can come back and join the broodmare band."