Full-brothers Fierceness and Mentee set to run in Breeders' Cup Grade 1 races

Repole Stable brings a rare opportunity to this year's Breeders' Cup; a chance for racing fans to watch full-siblings perform in championship races on the same weekend.

Fierceness who has been pre-entered in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Classic and Mentee, who has been pre-entered in both the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf and the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint are both sons of Lane's End's City Of Light, out of Mike Repole's homebred winner Nonna Bella.

Three-year-old Fierceness is already a Breeders' Cup winner, with his first Grade 1 success coming in the Juvenile at Santa Anita last year and his top-level victories in the Santa Anita Derby and Travers Stakes this season have set him up for a clash with City Of Troy at Del Mar next weekend.

His year-younger full-brother won the Grade 3 Futurity Stakes last time out.

Fierceness is the third foal out of Nonna Bella, a daughter of Repole's multiple Grade 1 winner Stay Thirsty who now stands at Lovacres Ranch in California. The mare was bred to City Of Light because Repole had just purchased shares in the son of Quality Road and his pedigree adviser – Ed Rosen – had been impressed with Dunbar Road, a Grade 1 winner by Quality Road out of a Bernardini mare.

"We were looking at what was working with Quality Road," Rosen told BloodHorse in an interview last year. "He [Dunbar Road] is out of a Bernardini mare. Stay Thirsty is by Bernardini, so it is not real scientific, but it seemed that cross was working with a filly that was exceptional."

Fierceness was such a good-looking foal — rated among the best foals produced at Lane's End in 2021 — that Nonna Bella went back to City Of Light and produced Mentee.

Trainer Todd Pletcher said he first saw Mentee at an Ocala training center in March of the colt's two-year-old year.

City Of Light wins the Pegasus World Cup in 2019Credit: Michael Reaves

"He is a nice colt but a different colt than Fierceness. He is a bit on the smaller side and is shorter-coupled with different muscle tone but still a nice-moving horse," he said. "One thing we found that was similar, once we got him in, is his disposition; he's laid-back, easy to train, and has a good mind."

If they start in their respective races during Breeders' Cup weekend on November 1-2 at Del Mar, they will become the eighth pair of full-siblings to race during the world championships in the same year.

The first pair of full-siblings raced during the second Breeders' Cup event in 1985 at Aqueduct where Earl Scheib's homebreds Fran's Valentine and Earl's Valentine ran in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Distaff and Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies respectively. 

The sisters were by Group 1-placed stakes winner Saros, who Scheib acquired and raced in the United States beginning in the summer of 1978 and later stood at Kings Way Farm in California. Scheib also raced the sisters' dam, the stakes-placed Iza Valentine, from three to five in the name of his Green Thumb Farm Stables.

The second and third sets of full-siblings to contest the Breeders' Cup in the same year yielded the only pairs so far to include a winner.

In 1988, Ogden Phipps' homebred Personal Ensign captured an epic edition of the Breeders' Cup Distaff over that year's Grade 1 Kentucky Derby victress Winning Colors but the winner's brother Personal Flag finished sixth in the Breeders' Cup Classic. The siblings were by homebred stallion Private Account, and are the only Graded stakes winners produced by Phipps' homebred Grecian Banner.

The next siblings competed in 2006 when Frank Calabrese's homebred Dreaming of Anna won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies and earned honors as the year's champion two-year-old filly. Her full-brother Lewis Michael, however, would finish 11th in the  Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Sprint. These siblings are by Rahy out of the Grade 3-placed stakes winner Justenuffheart, also the dam of Justenuffhumor (Distorted Humor), who ran third in the 2009 Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Mile.

Fierceness will have to keep his cool to see off the likes of City Of TroyCredit: Justin Casterline/Getty Images

Only one pair of full-siblings has ever competed in the same Breeders' Cup race, which occurred in the second running of the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile in 2008 when the race was a Listed stakes. Owner-breeder Joseph LaCombe raced brothers Slew's Tiznow, who was three and Slew's Tizzy, who was a four-year-old. They finished 10th and 11th, respectively.

Whatever the Breeders' Cup races yield, Repole said he is proud to see two such accomplished runners representing his programme.

"Having a breeding programme that is producing homebred Graded stakes winners is surreal," Repole said. "Nonna Bella is a great mare, producing this dynamic duo. This goes back 15 years ago when I raced her sire Stay Thirsty and her dam Nonna Mia, who is named after my beloved grandmother. It's extremely special."

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