Lemon Drop Kid

Lemon Drop Kid (foaled May 26, 1996) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. Best known for winning the 1999 Belmont Stakes, he was also the champion older horse of 2000 after winning the Brooklyn, Suburban, Whitney Handicaps and the Woodward Stakes. Background Lemon Drop Kid is a bay horse with no white markings bred in Kentucky by William S. Farish III & William S. Kilroy. He was sired by Kingmambo an American-bred horse who raced in Europe before returning to the United States to become a highly successful breeding stallion. His dam Charming Lassie, a daughter of Seattle Slew, went on to produce Statue of Liberty, a colt which won the Coventry Stakes in 2002. Charming Lassie's dam was Lassie Dear, an influential broodmare whose other descendants have included A.P. Indy, Summer Squall, Duke of Marmalade and Wolfhound. Racing career As a two-year-old in 1998 Lemon Drop Kid showed himself to be a very promising colt with a victory in the Grde I Belmont Futurity in September. Lemon Drop Kid won a minor race at Gulfstream Park in February 1999 but then appeared to have his limitations exposed when he was well-beaten in the Blue Grass Stakes and then finishing ninth to Charismatic in the Kentucky Derby. The colt missed the Preakness Stakes but returned on 5 June for the Belmont takes, a race which featured Charimatics attempt to become the first winner of the Triple Crown in more than 20 years. Ridden by José A. Santos he came from well off the pace to overtake Charismatic in the stretch and held off the rallying outsider Vision And Verse to win by a head. After the race, most of the attention went to Charismatic, who sustained a career-ending injury, rather than to the winner.