Graded win the goal for Quezon in Fritchie

Trainer Bobby Ribaudo and owner Marc Keller have carefully managed the career of Quezon, who will be among the favorites in the Grade 2 Barbara Fritchie at Laurel Park on Saturday. Following this weekend’s race, they will huddle up to determine her path going forward.

The $300,000 Fritchie, a seven-furlong race for fillies and mares, is the Winter Carnival program headliner at Laurel. The day will include five other stakes: the Grade 3, $250,000 General George, a seven-furlong race for 4-year-olds and up, and four $100,000 races – a pair of distance events for older horses and two 3-year-old stakes.

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Quezon was entered in the 2016 Keeneland November breeding stock sale but Ribaudo and Keller withdrew her and instead mapped out a 5-year-old campaign for 2017. Quezon did not come back as sharp as she had been at the end of 2016, however, and for a while it looked as if they would have been better off selling.

“At the end of 2016 her numbers were as good as they were going to get, so we gave her a break and sent her to Ocala,” Ribaudo said. “When we brought her back, she was running well but not as good as the year before. Even at Saratoga, we were more disappointed than excited with where we were with her.”

Quezon was entered in last fall’s Keeneland November sale, but when she finished a sharp third to Highway Star and Carina Mia in the Grade 2 Gallant Bloom at Belmont Park in September, she once again was pulled from the auction.

“She showed she was back in form and we knew we had the Garland of Roses, the La Verdad, and the Barbara Fritchie coming up,” Ribaudo said.

Quezon finished 2017 by winning the Garland of Roses and began 2018 by beating New York-breds in the La Verdad, validating Ribaudo and Keller’s call to keep her in training.

A winner of 7 of 18 starts and more than $750,000, Quezon has now won a stakes each year since she began racing in 2014. She has been graded-stakes-placed three times.

“Our goal is to get her a graded stakes win,” Ribaudo said. “That is the one thing we have not been able to do up to this point.”

Several months ago, Keller purchased a breeding to Gun Runner for Quezon. Gun Runner has since gone on to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic and Pegasus World Cup, and been named 2017 Horse of the Year.

The Fritchie will likely be Quezon’s curtain call, but a decisive win could earn her another year of racing, according to Ribaudo.

“If she wins the Fritchie big and shows she might be able to stay at this level for another year, we could call another audible and race her at 6,” he said. “We could bring her back later in the year, maybe get her ready at Saratoga. She sure seems to come into her best form in the fall.”

Ms. Locust Point, a winner of 5 of 7 starts who is undefeated in three stakes at Laurel, is the probably Fritchie favorite for trainer John Servis.

Other probable starters include Berned, who scored a strong win in the Safely Kept Stakes at Laurel in November and has been training in Florida for Graham Motion; Boule, trained by Bill Mott; Moiety; and Tazkeya.

Highway Star is possible for the Fritchie. A three-time graded winner for trainer Rodrigo Ubillo last year, she has worked five times since Jan. 11.

The likely General George starters include Great Stuff, who won the Grade 3 Toboggan for trainer David Jacobson on Jan. 27, and the Linda Rice-trained Gravesend Stakes winner Do Share.

Other probables include Threefiveindia, who is trained by Chad Brown; Awesome Banner and Fellowship, who are based at Laurel with Kenneth Decker; plus Something Awesome, Cowboy Mz, and Sonny Inspired.