Quezon cruises to victory in La Verdad
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Quezon holds her future in her own hooves.
Run well in next month’s Grade 2 Barbara Fritchie Handicap at Laurel Park and enjoy the rest of 2018 as a race horse. Regress and start preparing for a date with likely 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner in a few months in the breeding shed.
That’s a summation of what owner Marc Keller said following Quezon’s dominant 4 1/4-length victory in Friday’s $100,000 La Verdad for New York-bred fillies and mares at Aqueduct. The victory was Quezon’s seventh from 18 starts and pushed her career earnings to $754,200. It was her fifth career stakes win, four of them coming against New York-bred company.
It was a very sharp effort from Quezon, who had beat mainly New York-breds when she won the Garland of Roses here on Dec. 9. That day, she sat last of five early, got a contested pace in front of her, and outfinished Picco Uno to win by a half-length.
In the La Verdad, delayed nearly two weeks by weather-related cancellations, Quezon again showed the ability to sit and finish. She was fifth of six early on under Joe Rocco Jr., advanced three-wide as she gained on front-runners Wonderment and Absatootly before opening up an insurmountable lead by the eighth pole.
Quezon, a 6-year-old daughter of Tiz Wonderful, completed seven furlongs in 1:22.67 and returned $3.40 as the 3-5 favorite.
Palladian Bridge rallied to be second, three lengths in front of Wonderment. Bee Noteworthy, Absatootly, and She’s All Ready completed the order of finish. Holiday Disguise scratched because test results on a horse in her barn who tested positive for equine herpesvirus on Jan. 9 had not been returned by Friday. Sheila Rosenblum, owner of Holiday Disguise, had hoped to run that filly in the inaugural La Verdad, named for the horse she owned and the Eclipse Award-winning female sprinter of 2015.
Despite the two-week delay in running the race, trainer Robert Ribaudo said he entered the La Verdad very confident Quezon would deliver a similar performance as she did winning the Garland of Roses.
“You can never be too confident in this business, but we were very confident today and she fulfilled that expectation,” Ribaudo said. “She really kicked on, more so than she did the last time and basically [against] the same group of horses, so we were very happy with the finish again.”
Rocco said Quezon gave him more of a run Friday than she did in the Garland of Roses.
“Last time, she only really ran the last sixteenth,” he said. “Today, she had more of a prolonged run, but it was nice.”
Quezon will have at least one more run, that being in the $300,000 Barbara Fritchie on Feb. 17 at Laurel.
“The one thing that’s eluded her is the graded win,” Ribaudo said.
