The 2012 Outstanding Broodmare Sovereign, a lifetime achievement award in which the honoree must have had a stakes calibre runner in the award year plus any previous year, came down to a battle royale between two divas.
Misty Mission was the narrowest of winners by two voting points over Captivating, the dam of 2012 Horse of the Year and Champion Two-Year-Old Uncaptured.
A flashy chestnut foaled in 1997, Misty Mission did not race many times but her one big win was one of the largest upsets at Woodbine in the year 2000. The daughter of Miswaki – Hangin on a Star, by Vice Regent defeated her popular stablemate Catch the Ring in the 2000 Wonder Where Stakes, quashing her mate’s bid to complete a sweep of the Triple Tiara. Misty Mission would race just three times in her career before being retired to the breeding shed.
As part of the powerful Sam-Son broodmare band, Misty Mission has produced seven foals of racing age, two stakes winners including the champion three-year-old filly and turf female in Canada in 2012, Irish Mission.
A daughter of Giant’s Causeway, Irish Mission was sold by Sam-Son for $375,000 as a yearling at the 2010 Fasig Tipton Saratoga Summer sale to Robert “Shel” Evans.
Trained by Mark Frostad, who also trained Misty Mission, Irish Mission won her maiden at Keeneland in April, 2012, setting up her superb three-year-old Canadian campaign. She scored an upset win at 9 to 1 in the Woodbine Oaks and then finished a brave second in the Queen’s Plate behind three-year-old colt champion Strait of Dover.
Proving to be one of the best three-year-olds of any sex in Canada, Irish Mission then beat the boys in the Breeders’ Stakes, the third jewel of Canada’s Triple Crown at 1 _ miles on the grass. Irish Mission has current earnings of just over $875,000.
Misty Mission was off to a big start as a broodmare as her first foal was the quirky, but successful grass runner French Beret.
A foal of 2003, French Beret won the Colonel E.R. Bradley Stakes (GIII) at Fair Grounds in New Orleans in 2008 and 2009. French Beret also won the Toronto Cup at Woodbine and earned $659,434 in his career.
Misty Mission, who resides at Sam-Son’s Milton, ON farm, has the promising Giant’s Causeway three-year-colt Smooth Stone in 2013 and an Unbridled’s Song yearling filly. The mare produced a Smart Strike filly on March 15, 2013 and has been bred back to Giant’s Causeway.
