Millionaire Valentine Candy to Stand at Leadem Farm

Bob and Tyree Wolesensky's Leadem Farm has acquired a 45% interest in Valentine Candy, a six-time stakes winner and graded stakes-placed son of 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify. Valentine Candy will stand the 2027 season at Leadem Farm near Leola, Ark. After campaigning the son of Justify through a three-year racing career, original owners William and Corinne Heiligbrodt, Jackpot Farm, Whispering Oaks Farm, and Coteau Grove Farms will stay on for his stud career and will be joined by a new partner, Jay Goodwin. Trained by Steve Asmussen, Valentine Candy retires with $1,095,877 in earnings and an 8-1-2 record from 17 lifetime starts. His sire, Justify, currently ranks sixth on the North American general sire list by progeny earnings. Justify stood the 2026 season at Coolmore's Ashford Stud for an advertised fee of $200,000. A winner at first asking going 6 1/2 furlongs at Saratoga Race Course, Valentine Candy finished his juvenile year in spectacular fashion with back-to-back stakes wins at Oaklawn Park. Valentine Candy launched his 3-year-old season by capturing a pair of stakes victories at Oaklawn, remaining undefeated over the Hot Springs track before kicking off his summer campaign with a grade 2-placing in the Amsterdam Stakes (G2) at Saratoga. He returned a month later to win the Robert Hilton Memorial Stakes over eventual Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) winner Bentornato. Following that win, he set a dirt track record for 5 1/2 furlongs at Churchill Downs. Out of the multiple graded stakes-placed Candy Ride (ARG) mare, Taste Like Candy, Valentine Candy hails from a strong female family. He was bred in Kentucky by Pine Creek LP, who sold him as a yearling to Jackpot Farm for $250,000 at Fasig-Tipton's Kentucky October Yearling Sale in 2022. During the third session of Keeneland's September Yearling Sale, his half brother by Into Mischief commanded $1.5 million from Spendthrift Farm and Epic Horses. Valentine Candy will stand the 2027 season at Leadem Farm for $4,000. "Mr. Oaklawn. I can't think of another horse that absolutely dominated Oaklawn," Goodwin said. "Four starts and four stakes wins in one meet. The fastest son of Justify on dirt holding the 5 1/2-furlong at Churchill. "I don't think Arkansas has ever had such an exciting prospect retire to the state. With some of the best connections in horse racing, he will have every shot to make it. I think we will get mares from the surrounding states as well."