GRADE I DOUBLE GIVES QUALITY ROAD FOUR G1SW IN 2018

With five stakes winners in 24 hours, the stallion that dominated a historic weekend of racing was none other than Lane’s End’s Quality Road. The stallion’s versatility was on display with progeny winning stakes from turf sprints to dirt routes all across North America over the weekend.

Lionite scored in the Prairie Mile S. on Friday night to begin his stallion’s winning streak, followed by graded stakes winner Road to Victory’s Alywow S. victory sprinting over the Woodbine turf course. Paved gave Quality Road another graded win in Santa Anita’s G2 Honeymoon S. Quality Road scored an elusive Grade 1 double on the Belmont Stakes card with Champion Abel Tasman’s facile tally in the G1 Ogden Phipps and Spring Quality’s rallying upset in the G1 Manhattan. These wins, along with Salty’s G1 La Troienne and City of Light’s GI Triple Bend, give Quality Road four Grade 1 winners in 2018. 

Quality Road now leads all North American stallions in 2018 by black-type winners with 10 and graded stakes winners seven. He leads all fifth-crop North American and European sires in virtually every category including earnings with a total of $5,862,112. Even more remarkably, Quality Road leads all North American and European stallions by Grade 1 winners with four. No other stallion in North America has more than one Grade 1 winner in 2018, while five European stallions have managed two, including the well-regarded Galileo (Ire) and Dubawi (Ire). In comparison, in their fifth year at stud, Scat Daddy, War Front and Bernardini only sired one Grade 1 winner.

From his four crops of racing age, Quality Road now has a total of 27 stakes winners, 18 graded winners and eight Grade 1 winners.