bully for bourbon (county) as local stallion operations have impressive weekend successes

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blame, claiborne farm, curlin, hill 'n' dale, war front

Maybe it’s something in the water.

Whatever it is, the stallion operations in neighboring Bourbon County (northeast of Fayette County, which includes Lexington) have been ringing the bell repeatedly. Today, there are only two commercial stallion operations in Bourbon County: Claiborne Farm and Hill ‘n’ Dale at Xalapa.

On Keeneland’s second day of racing this fall, in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity, which is sponsored by Claiborne, the first two finishers were out of mares by 2010 champion older horse Blame (by Arch), who stands at Claiborne. Annapolis, winner of the Grade 1 Turf Mile at Keeneland, is by Claiborne stallion War Front (Danzig); Nagirroc (Lea) won the G3 Futurity Stakes in New York; and a few days earlier on the West Coast, Midnight Memories won the G2 Zenyatta Stakes to become the first graded winner for Claiborne stallion Mastery (Candy Ride).

In the Breeders’ Futurity, the winner was G1 Hopeful winner Forte (Violence) by a neck over Loggins (Ghostzapper). The sires of both stand at Bourbon County’s Hill ‘n’ Dale at Xalapa, which also stands Curlin (Smart Strike), the sire of Saturday’s G2 Vosburgh Stakes winner Elite Power. On Sunday, Curlin’s daughters Nest and First to Act finished one-two in the G2 Beldame Stakes, and later that day, the stallion’s Malathaat won the G1 Spinster at Keeneland.

Malathaat was last year’s champion 3-year-old filly, and Nest is a virtual certainty to win the Eclipse Award for that division this year after impressive victories in the Coaching Club American Oaks and Alabama, then a blowout victory in the Beldame against older fillies and mares.

Curlin stood the 2022 season at Hill ‘n’ Dale for $175,000 live foal, and with 89 stakes winners to date, including five G1 winners this year, Curlin is an eminently “proven” stallion. He, like Ghostzapper, won a Breeders’ Cup Classic and was named Horse of the Year, then followed up those racing performances by siring repeated successful performers at the top level of sport.

Violence, however, had a more limited racing career of four starts. The strikingly handsome dark brown won the first three of his races, then was second in the G2 Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream to subsequent Kentucky Derby winner Orb (Malibu Moon).

The handsome son of Medaglia d’Oro raced no more and was retired to stud at Hill ‘n’ Dale for the 2014 breeding season. He proved very popular with breeders, getting 119 and 116 named foals in his first two crops, which included G1 winner Volatile in the second crop. Overall, the stallion’s first two crops produced 84 percent starters to foals, compared to 61 percent for the breed overall; 71 percent winners (42 percent); and 7 percent stakes winners with 16, compared to 3 percent for the breed.

That counted as a positive start to a stallion career, and Violence is still standing in Kentucky to sizable books of good mares and stands for a fee of $25,000. The young Three Chimneys Farm stallion Volatile, along with third- and fourth-crop G1 winners No Parole (Woody Stephens) and Dr. Schivel (Del Mar Futurity; Bing Crosby Handicap), have been excellent indicators of what Violence is capable of siring, but the stallion needed a national champion, a home run colt, to break into the ranks of elite sires like Curlin, Tapit, or War Front.

Could Forte be that colt?

He is certainly talented, fast, and brave. When he ranged up outside of Loggins in the Breeders’ Futurity, it appeared the Violence colt would blow past his rival. Loggins had other ideas and never gave up, but at the wire, Forte was a neck in front of his rival and claimed the victory.

The third-place colt, Red Route One (Gun Runner), was seven lengths behind the winner.

The suggestion of the form is that both Forte and Loggins are quite good and that the future holds high promise for them both.

Bred in Kentucky by South Gate Farm, Forte has now won three of his four starts and is one of two juvenile colts with a pair of G1 victories. The other is Cave Rock (Arrogate).

Forte is out of the Blame mare Queen Caroline, a four-time stakes winner, and the colt’s second dam, Queens Plaza (Forestry), won the Sorority Stakes at 2. The third dam, Kew Garden (Seattle Slew), was only a winner, but her dam was the multiple graded stakes winner Jeano (Fappiano). Another daughter of Jeano, Contrive, produced the champion 2-year-old filly Folklore (Tiznow).

South Gate sold Forte for $80,000 as a weanling at the 2020 Keeneland November sale, and the colt was pinhooked into the following year’s September sale, where he brought $110,000 from Repole Stable & St. Elias Stable, which entities own and race the colt.

Forte’s dam Queen Caroline was purchased by Amy Moore of South Gate Farm for $170,000 at the 2014 Keeneland September sale. Queen Caroline won four stakes and $401,608, placing in four other stakes. Forte is the mare’s first foal, and she has a yearling colt by Uncle Mo who sold to Mayberry Farm for $850,000 at the 2022 Keeneland September sale. Earlier this year, Queen Caroline was bred to Not This Time (Giant’s Causeway), the sire of Epicenter and other good racers.

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stallion success is the most demanding challenge for horses, owners, breeders

Tags

blame, stallion success

In the great scheme of sport, becoming a stakes winner is a huge accomplishment, with only about three percent of the breed attaining that level of racing success. Only a fraction of one percent wins a graded or group race.

And from that tiny fraction, made even smaller by the virtual requirement of a G1 victory, comes the subset of colts who enter stud and breed on the next generation. For example, of the 18 stallions who covered their first book of mares in Kentucky in 2021 and stood for a fee of $10,000 or more, every one was a Grade 1 winner, and some of the half-dozen new covering sires priced below that fee were, as well.

Yet from that supremely elite group, how many can reasonably be expected to succeed?

Very few. Even with excellent racing records, good to exceptional pedigrees, good to excellent conformation, and very good books of mares to share their genetic potential, perhaps only a third of the entering crop will be in demand a decade later.

Claiborne Farm’s and Adele Dilschneider’s homebred and -raced champion Blame is one of the exceptions who has weathered the trials of the marketplace to achieve stallion success in the past decade. (Claiborne Farm photo)

From a review of the stallions who entered stud 10 years ago in 2011, only five were at stud in Kentucky for a fee of $10,000 or higher (actually, the least expensive of these is Lookin at Lucky at $20,000). The five are leading sire Quality Road ($150,000), Munnings ($40,000), champion Blame ($30,000), Kantharos ($30,000), and champion Lookin at Lucky ($20,000).

From the numbers above, roughly two-tenths of a percent (1.8) of an annual foal crop of 10,000 colts would get a spot at stud in Kentucky, and maybe a third of those will continue to be sufficiently in demand to retain a spot at stud in the Bluegrass at a significant fee.

That is a steep hill to climb.

Among the stakes winners over the weekend, however, two showed up with close relationships to stallions who did not make the grade in Kentucky.

Winner of the Searching Stakes at Pimlico, Blame Debbie is by the aforementioned Blame, one of the success stories among the entering sire crop of 2011. By the good sire Arch, Blame was the champion older horse of 2010, when he won the G1 Whitney, Stephen Foster, and Breeders’ Cup Classic. He is the sire of 31 stakes winners, including classic winner Senga and the additional G1 winners Nadal (Arkansas Derby) and Marley’s Freedom (Ballerina). In addition to last weekend’s stakes win, Blame Debbie won the G3 Dowager at Keeneland last year.

The broodmare sire of Blame Debbie, however, is Horse of the Year Invasor (Candy Stripes), and he is a horse who did not achieve the level of stallion success required to stay in Kentucky. An Argentine-bred who was unbeaten in Uruguay, then purchased by Shadwell and raced internationally, Invasor won 11 of his 12 starts, earning $7.8 million.

In addition, Invasor is by the broodmare sire of the highly regarded stallion Candy Ride (Ride the Rails), and from an elite Argentine family. Yet, even with a very good pedigree and an exceptional racing record both domestically and abroad, Invasor was unable to reproduce his own excellence in his foals and was returned to South America to stand at Haras Cuatro Piedras in Uruguay.

A similar instance to the 2006 Horse of the Year came with the 1997 Horse of the Year Favorite Trick (by Phone Trick), who entered stud in 1999 at Walmac.

A fast and early-maturing horse, Favorite Trick was unbeaten at two, when he won all eight of his starts, including the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and was elected Horse of the Year. He did not train on at that level of success at three and was retired to stud at four.

Overall, the dark brown horse failed to have the consistent success so important to maintain a permanent residence in Kentucky, and he was sent to stand at stud in Florida, then in New Mexico, where he died in 2006.

Even so, Favorite Trick is the sire of the second dam of Informative (Bodemeister), who won the G3 Salvator Mile at Monmouth on June 12. That second dam is the unraced So Spirited, a half-sister to the G1 winners Roman Ruler (Fusaichi Pegasus) and El Corredor (Mr. Greeley), and their dam, the Silver Deputy mare Silvery Swan, was one of the very best mares that Favorite Trick covered in his stallion career.

Silvery Swan produced three graded stakes winners, a fourth racer who was G1-placed, and a pair of daughters who have produced stakes horses. So Spirited didn’t produce any, but her winning daughter Lucky Black (Hard Spun) is the dam of Informative. The colt’s sire is G1 winner Bodemeister, who has 22 stakes winners from 848 foals of racing age, and he has been sold and exported to stand at Karacabey Stud in Turkey.

The economics of breeding racehorses and standing stallions makes the market intensely dynamic, as this synopsis has indicated, and yet horses by stallions that have been deemed no longer up to standard for the premium market in Kentucky still have viability and the potential to produce quality racers.

arch achieving more

Tags

arch, blame, claiborne farm, love theway youare, stallion management, vanity handicap

The following post first appeared earlier this week at Paulick Report.

Love Theway Youare (by Arch) picked a fine time to win a Grade 1 stakes with her victory on Saturday in the Vanity Handicap. The two and a half-length victory over Include Me Out (Include) also represented more than six lengths’ difference in form from her March 17 second to Include Me Out in the G1 Santa Margarita.

On the evidence of these two races, both Love Theway Youare and Include Me Out are very good fillies, and Love Theway Youare suggested she was even sharper than before with a five-furlong work in :58 3/5, which was the best of 14 at the distance on June 7.

Both fillies are also daughters of Kentucky stallions who might be described as underdogs or “dark horses” in the wildly competitive business of sires who are commercial enough for market breeders to use as mates for their better mares and successful enough to buck the tide of interest in breeding to the new crop of entering stallions each spring.

It’s hard to imagine the sire of two North American champions and a pair of highweight racers overseas as a dark horse of the stallion ranks, but that title describes Claiborne Farm’s Arch both literally and figuratively.

He is, as a son of leading sire Kris S. and the Danzig mare Aurora, a tall and good-looking and quite dark horse that Seth Hancock picked out of the 1996 Keeneland July selected yearling sale as an outstanding individual who looked like the type of horse who could become an important addition to the Claiborne stallion roster.

Following a good racing career in which he won five of seven starts, including the G1 Super Derby, Arch entered stud at Claiborne in 1999 and sired the English highweighted sprinter Les Arcs in his first crop. The stallion’s most recent champion is 2010 Eclipse Award winner Blame, who was champion older horse after defeating Quality Road in the G1 Whitney at Saratoga and then becoming the only horse ever to finish in front of Zenyatta in winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Blame set his sire on a roll which has continued with last year’s Arkansas Derby winner Archarcharch, now at stud at Spendthrift in Kentucky, and that swell of success has continued with even greater force this season.

Arch’s major stakes winners this year include Hymn Book (G1 Donn), Newsdad (G2 Pan American), Bauble Queen (G2 Robert Frankel H.), Rothko (G3 Aristides), and now Love Theway Youare.

In addition, from his third crop of foals, Arch sired the winning mare Arch’s Gal Edith, and her son I’ll Have Another won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness this year, putting Arch prominently among the leading broodmare sires.

All these good horses have brought Arch’s popularity to a strong simmer, and he stands for a $30,000 fee to a full book of mares annually. Claiborne also stands Arch’s champion son, and getting a son who carries on for him would be an important box for Arch to mark in the “great stallion sweepstakes” that plays year after year for stallions and the people who manage them.

Among the proven strengths of this line of horses descending from Turn-to and his champion son Hail to Reason through English Derby winner Roberto is versatility. They have speed, and they typically can carry it two turns. Frequently they are better horses with the ability to compete at a higher class in those two-turn races. These are horses who show ability on turf, on dirt, on synthetic.

In the case of Arch, this versatility and quality was grafted onto the speed and fine energy of leading international sire Danzig and champion 2yo filly Althea through their talented daughter Aurora. The latter was a sensational workhorse at New York tracks in 1991-1992, and she showed high speed and a certain amount of mental volatility in the afternoons.

The winner of seven races, but only one stakes, Aurora gave the appearance of an immensely talented filly who somehow had managed not to show her best when it counted most. Still she was very quick, an obvious broodmare prospect of significance, and she proved all that and more, as she has produced four stakes winners to date, including UAE Horse of the Year Festival of Light (A.P. Indy), G1 winner Acoma (Empire Maker), G1 winner Arch, and listed winner Alisios (Kris S.).

Arch’s female family, going back through champion Althea to the wonderful producer Courtly Dee, is one of the mightiest in the stud book, and in the stallion’s most recent G1 winner, we find a correspondingly strong female family.

Love Theway Youare is out of the stakes-winning Tabasco Cat mare Diversa, with mighty Sabin as her third dam. This is the family of Ole Liz that has rewarded the cultivation of breeders for decades.

blame: new ky stallions for 2011

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arch, bc classic, blame, broadway, buckpasser, champion older horse, complimentary mating, courtly dee, female families, haynesfield, new stallions for 2011, physique in racehorses, quality in racehorses, rough shod, seeking the gold, thong, zenyatta

Blame (2006 b by Arch x Liable, by Seeking the Gold)

Claiborne $35,000

With his first two mares covered confirmed in foal this week, Blame is continuing his new career with the quiet and untroubled success he demonstrated during his seasons on the track.

Neither a star at 2 nor a Triple Crown colt at 3, Blame did not catch the headlines of many in his age group until his continued victories propelled him to be one of the contenders in the division among older horses last year. Then victory in the Whitney over Quality Road put the bay son of Arch at the top of the tree.

Blame stubbed his toe in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, when Haynesfield got awful brave on the lead, and Blame didn’t manage to run down the chestnut son of Distorted Humor Speightstown.

That set the stage for Blame to be almost overlooked in the buildup to the BC Classic, when all eyes and news outlets were focused on Zenyatta. So Blame earned more fame in the last two minutes of his racing career than he found in the preceding two years. No fault of his; that’s just how it worked out.

A really handsome horse, Blame is the type to be of great interest to breeders. The son of Arch stands over a lot of ground, has plenty of bone with well-defined tendons, is neither coarse nor gross in body type, and has the scope that made him a natural 10-furlong horse.

In physical type, he shows much more the influence of Buckpasser through his broodmare sire Seeking the Gold, a son of Mr Prospector out of Buckpasser mare Con Game.

I was expecting more evidence of Kris S and Hail to Reason in the horse’s physique, judging from the power Blame showed on the racetrack, but he is much more finesse and finely tuned precision in the flesh. He has a very good head with a game, bold eye, and the quality from Seeking the Gold and Buckpasser shines through.

Also, Blame has a great pedigree. On top, the family is the great Helen Alexander/King Ranch female line from Courtly Dee (by Never Bend) through her champion daughter Althea (by Alydar). Seeking the Gold comes from one of the several great Phipps families, this through Broadway, dam also of champion Queen of the Stage and her very high-class brother Reviewer (both by Bold Ruler). And the bottom line is Claiborne’s own Rough Shod through Thong, Special, Bound, and Liable.

Nice.

Since standing Thong’s full brother Ridan in the mid-1960s, Claiborne has stood only one stallion from this family: the Northern Dancer horse Topsider from the branch of Rough Shod through her daughter Gambetta.

In selecting mares for Blame, he will move up mares needing quality. He would be assisted by mares with more speed, which never goes out of fashion, and lines complimentary to the families above (say Forty Niner, Northern Dancer, Caro) could add some spark to the resulting offspring.

and the envelope shows …

Tags

blame, championships, horse of the year, thoroughbred breeding, zenyatta

On the eve of the Eclipse Awards, when weeks of argument about the superiority of Zenyatta and Blame will come to end, the most pressing question is … who will the big mare be bred to.

My expectation is that the short list is something like this: AP Indy, Smart Strike, Distorted Humor. Someone will shortly ask, “What about Giant’s Causeway?” I don’t especially like him for this mare, but many might.

Bernardini is good enough but doesn’t yet have enough proof on the racetrack to satisfy some. Why would anyone send a mare of this quality to a stallion who isn’t fully proven?

So it’s a very short list.

My own preference, if the mare and the choice were mine (and obviously aren’t), is Galileo. He has the class, he had exceptional cruising speed and begets this, he had outstanding closing speed and begets this, and he is a good, medium-sized, sound horse. Hard to fault, isn’t he?

Now we await the formal announcement. The envelope please.

nasrullah put high-test petrol in the tank

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apalachee, aptitude, blame, dosage, federico tesio, franco varola, moccassin, nasrullah, nervous energy, nureyev, philosophy and pedigrees, ridan, rough shod, sadler's wells

Reader Russ Fisher had a question about “the effect that the Nasrullah blood seems to have had with” the family of Rough Shod, which has produced such stars as Ridan, Moccasin, Apalachee, Nureyev, Sadler’s Wells, Blame, and others.

In particular, Fisher said, “It looks like Nasrullah was able to bring out the distance genes found far back in the family.”

One way of looking at this is through the prism of dosage. As used by Franco Varola, dosage categorized many of the Nearco horses, including Nasrullah as brilliant, others as trans-brilliant or intermediate. But in Varola’s usage that wasn’t a distance evaluation but rather a humanistic assessment of the horse’s dynamics.

In essence, being brilliant meant having speed (and usually high energy) but also the potential to race a distance or get horses capable of doing so. Certainly that was true of Nasrullah, who was a splendid 2yo and matured well at 3 to be third in the Derby, run at Newmarket in 1943 because of WWII.

So, the “nervous energy” that Federico Tesio writes about is a significant part of what I think of as brilliance in racing aptitude. It’s the energy, enthusiasm, fire, and determination that puts lead in the pencil, or high-test petrol in the tank of your sports car. Too much of this energy can cause a horse to be unreliable as a racing prospect; too little and you’ve a nice pasture ornament.

blame is first claiborne stallion from rough shod family since ridan

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apalachee, blame, blue grass stakes, breeders' cup classic, breeding families, claiborne farm, florida derby, moccasin, nantallah, nureyev, ridan, rough shod, sadler's wells, thatch, thomas girdler, thong

Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Blame will be the first stallion that historic Claiborne Farm has stood from the Rough Shod family in 56 years, when the outstanding colt Ridan (1959 b h by Nantallah x Rough Shod, by Gold Bridge) went to stud there.

Bred by Thomas Girdler, Ridan was a smashing racehorse, winning 13 of 23 starts, including the Blue Grass Stakes, Arlington Classic, Florida Derby, Arlington Futurity, and the Washington Park Futurity. Ridan finished second in the Preakness and Travers, third in the Kentucky Derby.

He was the second stakes winner out of Rough Shod, who sold to Claiborne when Ridan was a youngster. Claiborne bred and raced the mare’s subsequent foals, including champion Moccasin and her sister Thong, who ran second in the Alcibiades Stakes.

Moccasin produced European highweight Apalachee (Round Table), Thong produced European highweight Thatch (Forli) and major American winner King Pellinore (Round Table), Thong’s daughter Special produced the top-class international sire Nureyev (Northern Dancer), and Special’s daughter Fairy Bridge produced the great Sadler’s Wells and his brother Fairy King, both by Northern Dancer.

Claiborne bred and sold all those, except for Sadler’s Wells and Fairy King.

Special’s stakes-winning daughter Bound (Nijinsky) produced stakes-placed Liable (Seeking the Gold), who is the dam of Blame (Arch).

series on horse of the year debates

Tags

blame, boojum's bonanza, charlie hatton, Daily Racing Form, horse of the year, rachel alexandra, year-end awards, zenyatta

Over at Boojum’s Bonanza, there is an interesting series of posts about earlier debates concerning Horse of the Year. The focus of these historical postings, culled from Daily Racing Form annuals, is the 1953 and 1954 seasons that featured Native Dancer against Tom Fool and High Gun, respectively.

The thoughts and analyses of the Boojum and Charlie Hatton are not only lively reading but also offer some insights into the internal drama of the past two racing seasons, with Zenyatta competing against Rachel Alexandra and now Blame for the premium award.

Fifty-odd years ago, the different voting groups had not united to produce a single Horse of the Year, and the result was that sometimes there were multiple Horses of the Year, according to the perspectives of the different voting groups. As a result, there would be years with a good deal of infighting, biting, scratching, and name-calling.

Racing is not a dull sport.

the shortcomings of ‘awards’

Tags

andy beyer, blame, breeders' cup classic, champions, dave dink, horse of the year, photo finish, racing character, racing talent, ray paulick, zenyatta

As Zenyatta and Blame crossed the wire together at the end of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the clamor had not started. Which is really better? Who will win Horse of the Year? And just don’t get me started on the tiresome pun-dits of the headlines.

What is plain and undeniable is that both horses are champions and are models for racing talent and character. That is a treat for racing and a splendid opportunity for sharing the excellence of our sport with the general public.

Now, Andy Beyer elaborates slightly on his previous statement that Blame and Zenyatta share the same Beyer Speed Figure for the Classic and ran to their best form in a Q & A with Ray Paulick. Read it here.

 

So, for practical purposes, they are the same horse. Their difference in the Classic is a matter of inches, and as Dave Dink pointed out in a poetic post last week, would something so small change your mind about the quality of either of these outstanding horses?

I think not.

The shortcoming of awards and designations such as Horse of the Year is that they fail to share the glory of champions on the track in extreme competition or in the winner’s circle glistening from the exertions of their races. The result diminishes excellence by categorizing something that is transcendent.

And we miss the point if we do not recognize that racing has two champions this year, two athletes of outstanding merit and courage, and two grand horses who have proven their mettle on the course.

 

quality road a star for breeder’s program

Tags

ajina, allen paulson, alydar, blame, chris baker, elusive qualiity, horse breeding, keeneland september sale, kobla, metropolitan handicap, mr. prospector, native dancer, ned evans, paulson estate, quality road, racehorse management, raise a native, santa anita racetrack, size in the thoroughbred, spring hill farm, strawberry road, thoroughbred conformation, thoroughbred pedigrees, todd pletcher, whitney stakes, winglet, woodward stakes

The following article appeared earlier this week in Paulick Report.

The long and winding road leads to “quality” for Ned Evans of Spring Hill Farm in Virginia.

One of the premier owner-breeders in America, Evans bred and races Woodward Stakes and Metropolitan Handicap winner Quality Road, who will be one of the favorites for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Unbeaten this year, except for a narrow defeat to Blame in the Whitney Stakes last month, Quality Road is a big, grand-looking colt. He has always been a nice animal, and Chris Baker, who manages Spring Hill Farm for Evans, said that “Quality Road was remarkable in that everything he did was unremarkable. That’s a good thing. He never had illness or issues or any trouble to make you take note.”

A big colt with a very good family (five-cross pedigree), Quality Road would seem a natural prospect for the top end of the commercial market, but Baker said that didn’t work out. At the time of the Keeneland September sale, the colt was growing, rather than maturing, and he went unsold at $110,000.

Baker said, “As a yearling going into the sale, he wasn’t at his best, being a sort of old-fashioned type of horse, long and leggy, and we didn’t send him to Aiken [to be put into training] till December because he was a leggy, immature colt. Inasmuch as he was an impressive colt, he wasn’t one who had the most commercial appeal as a yearling.”

Neither Evans nor Baker thought any less of Quality Road for not being spot on when the sale came round. They knew the back story.

The colt had always been big. As a foal, Baker said, “Quality Road was born March 23, 2006, weighed 143 pounds, and stood 42.6 inches tall at the withers. When we weighed him the last time at the farm on November 29, 2007, before shipping him to Aiken, he was 1,240 pounds and stood 66.9 inches at the withers.”

That is a thumping big colt.

And he takes no prisoners. Quality Road is uncommonly big and strong, with a competitive spirit to match. Those excellent qualities led him into a much-publicized scrap with the gate crew at Santa Anita before last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic that resulted in Quality Road being scratched.

That televised image is the most common memory of the colt for many people. Yet Baker said that Quality Road “was never tough, just a playful colt. He was never difficult because everything was so easy for him.”

In the aftermath of that showdown at Santa Anita, trainer Todd Pletcher and the team around Quality Road went into action to restore the colt’s peace of mind and composure at the gate. It has worked brilliantly. Baker said the remarkable thing is “how traumatic that was and how much Quality Road has done to come back and load efficiently and quietly and stand well, even when Haynesfield was having a panic attack in the gate before the Whitney. I don’t think many horses would have overcome that event as well as this horse has, and I believe it speaks volumes for the horse’s mind and natural athleticism.”

Quality Road has not put a foot wrong this year and, with every start, has elevated both his standing as a premier member of the colts in the 4-year-old and up division and as a stallion prospect of a very high order.

His size, good conformation, and speed are major recommendations to breeders. And Quality Road is one of the very best racers by his sire Elusive Quality, a freakishly fast son of Gone West. This is the excellent male line of Native Dancer through Raise a Native and Mr. Prospector, and if anything, Quality Road’s female family is even better.

His dam is the Strawberry Road mare Kobla. She is a full sister to Ajina, champion 3-year-old filly of 1997 and winner of the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, CCA Oaks, and Mother Goose.

Their dam is graded stakes winner Winglet (by Alydar). She is a Grade 2 stakes winner bred and raced by Allen Paulson, who also bred and raced both Ajina and Kobla.

Kobla was among the fine stock that the Paulson estate sold at the 1999 Keeneland November sale, where Evans purchased the mare, in foal to Mt. Livermore, for $1,050,000.

Although Kobla has been a “hard-luck mare,” among the Spring Hill broodmares, she caught the brass ring by producing Quality Road. The mare also has a 2-year-old half-sister to Quality Road by Tale of the Cat named Kobla Cat and has a weanling full brother “who is a striking physical,” Baker said.

Kobla was bred to Elusive Quality this year but is not in foal. Despite that disappointment, I believe that Spring Hill will send the mare to Elusive Quality again because it is a road worth taking.