Blofeld leads big Saturday for Quality Road

Quality Road had a solid Saturday, siring three winners, including Blofeld, who got back to his winning ways in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap.

Blofeld, a member of Quality Road's first crop, earned Grade 2 victories in the Belmont Futurity and Nashua Stakes as a juvenile in 2014. The Gulfstream Park Handicap marked his first win since then.

“We were expecting a big performance from him,” trainer Todd Pletcher said of Blofeld, who is out of the stakes-winning Storm Cat mare Storm Minstrel. “I thought he got a race off the layoff, so we were looking for a big effort from him. It’s nice to see him get back to the form we knew he was capable of.”

Quality Road also was represented Saturday by Joy Drive and Five Star Rampage, both maiden special weight winners on debut at Aqueduct.

Quality Road, a four-time Grade 1 winner who earned more than $2.2 million, stands at Lane's End Farm in Versailles, Ky. From three crops of racing age, including current juveniles, he has seven stakes winners, led by Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf winner Hootenanny. He is represented by two stakes-winning 3-year-olds this year: Grade 3 El Camino Real Derby winner Frank Conversation, who is headed to the Group 2 UAE Derby, and Marengo Road, the winner of the Miracle Wood Stakes at Laurel Park.