Quality Road looking to fatten progeny earnings in Derby, Oaks

Quality Road made a statement in April when he sired the winners of the Santa Anita Derby and Santa Anita Oaks on the same day. Currently the nation’s leading sire by earnings, he’ll get a chance to widen his margin in emphatic fashion when Roadster is among the favorites in the Kentucky Derby and Bellafina starts as the heavy choice in the Kentucky Oaks.

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Quality Road is already the sire of a Kentucky Oaks winner in Eclipse Award champion Abel Tasman. He is also the sire of Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner and Eclipse champion Caledonia Road, Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and Pegasus World Cup winner City of Light, and Grade 1 winners Hootenanny, Illuminant, Klimt, Salty, and Spring Quality. The multiple Grade 1-winning stallion, whose stud fee has leapt from $35,000 in 2017, to $70,000 in 2018, to $150,000 this year, represents the legacy of his late breeder and owner, which is well represented in the spring classics. The late Edward P. Evans cultivated the female families responsible for Horse of the Year honorees Saint Liam and Gun Runner, and his former broodmares have a link to the weekend’s races. Both Roadster and Kentucky Oaks hopeful Liora, by Candy Ride, are out of stakes winners bred and raced by Evans and trace their lineage to the same mare. Roadster is out of Ghost Dancing, whose great-grandam is Intentional Move. Liora is out of Giant Mover, a granddaughter of the same mare.

Intentional Move, a winning daughter of Tentam, was foaled in 1979 and was also bred and raced by Evans. Her descendants include Grade 1 winners Ascend (a half-brother to Roadster), Cat Moves, Dance Teacher (the grandam of Roadster), and Hootenanny.