Quality Road continues strong run with Oaks winner Abel Tasman

Quality Road posted the biggest victory of his young stud career last Friday at Churchill Downs, as daughter Abel Tasman asserted her class in her division by splashing home to win the Kentucky Oaks.

The filly classic was the second Grade 1 victory for Abel Tasman, who is from just the third crop by the Lane’s End stallion. She has now been first or second in six of her seven career outings, including a win last December in the Starlet Stakes.

Quality Road’s own racing career was brilliant, with signature scores in the Florida Derby, Donn Handicap, Metropolitan Handicap, and Woodward Stakes, but also was marked by misadventure, as he battled a foot issue and was an infamous gate scratch at the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

The son of Elusive Quality ultimately won 8 of 13 starts, only missing the board once, and earned more than $2.2 million. He got his second career at Lane’s End off to a flying start, as he was the leading freshman sire of 2014 with a first crop including Hootenanny, the winner of the Windsor Castle Stakes at the renowned Royal Ascot meeting and later the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.

Quality Road is also the sire of Grade 1 winners Illuminant and Klimt; Grade 2 winners Blofeld, Frank Conversation, High Ridge Road, and Salty; and Grade 3 winners Guest Suite and Long Haul Bay.