Yes, a breeding inquiry for a stallion from a broodmare has to be submitted to the respective stud farm and then the farm decides whether or not your broodmare qualifies to breed to the stallion of interest....they determine this by the obvious factors:

Demand - if the stallions book is substantial than they will turn away lesser mares, but if the stallion's book is lite than they will take the business from anywhere to assure having the optimum covers per breeding season...the market has a way to balance itself out...you rarely have people irrationally trying to breed a bad mare to the top stallions because it economicaly doesn't make sense...if people have the money to spend $100,000 to breed to Empire Maker then they probably have enough money to own nice mares...most breeding requests that get turned down probably aren't as ridiculously lopsided as the example you provided...also, keep in mind that it is VERY common to get turned down for a stallion...it happens all of the time...I've gotten turned down before with very nice mares...it all has to do with demand for the stud..

Quality/Pedigree - If a stud stands in the marklet for more than $20K then there is probably a good reason he has a market to stand for that amount...the demand is there. With that being said, stud farms processes the breeding inquiries at the beginning of each year and uses quality and/or pedigree to deteremine the management of the stallion's book....Obviously, good race mares with good pedigrees make for the most attractive candidates and get first preference....after that, good racemares with average or lesser pedigrees, as well as mares with great to good pedigrees but no racing credentials get the second biggest looks, especially unraced or non-winners that may be half-sisters to stakes horses....and then, horses that displayed average ability on the track with averege pedigrees get a look....if there are any openings left in a good studs book, then maybe you'll get a few mares with bad race records and an averege pedigree....you get the picture...

Since Funny Cide is so popular on this board, I'll use him as an example. His dam - Belles Good Cide - was not a good racemare...she ran around Remington Park and Lone Star Park around the mid-late 90s and never earned a Beyer fig over 68 while racing for $20-$25K claimers after failing to win against entry-level allowance company in several attempts....she has a subpar pedigree being by Slewacide - who stud for next to nothing - out of a Little Current mare that was a decent producer, having produced a couple of Okie-bred stakes winners - but nothing special....they retired her and got her in foal to Distorted Humor, who was only standing for around $10-20K at the time and was fresh off the track trying to get some business....the rest is history...Belle's Good Cide could get to any stallion now because she is established, but she would not of been able to get to Distorted Humor in 2006 if she had not produced Funny Cide...

Bottomline: The market is set up to level itself out...