ARCADIA, Calif. – The six-time graded stakes winner Marley’s Freedom will be bred to Quality Road this year, owner Ron Perry said on Sunday.
Marley’s Freedom won 9 of 18 starts and earned $1,233,935. Trained initially by Bob Hess Jr., and later by Bob Baffert, Marley’s Freedom won her final start in the Grade 2 Great Lady M. Stakes at Los Alamitos last July.
Quality Road, a rising star in the stallion ranks for Lane’s End Farm over the last several years, will again see his stud fee spike in 2020, with his advertised fee of $200,000 placing him among the most expensive sires in North America.
Quality Road, a multiple Grade 1 winner by Elusive Quality, stood for an advertised fee of $70,000 in 2018 – up from $35,000 the prior year – after a career season in which he was represented by champions Abel Tasman and Caledonia Road.
The Kentucky Derby Sire Future Wager, which ran concurrently with the first Kentucky Derby Future Wager pool from Nov. 22- 25, may have provided an opportunity for pedigree-savvy handicappers to cash in.
Omaha Beach is the expected Derby favorite off victories in the Arkansas Derby and a division of the Rebel Stakes. Both he and multiple graded stakes winner War of Will are certain to go off at odds lower than that of their sire War Front, who closed at 41-1 in the future wager.
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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A filly by Quality Road sold for $1 million to power the action as the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co.'s spring sale of 2-year-olds in training reached its midway point with gains.
Quality Road got a head start in this year’s sire race when his son City of Light won North America’s richest race, the Pegasus World Cup. But despite City of Light’s immediate retirement to Lane’s End Farm, where he stands alongside his sire, Quality Road has continued to strengthen his hand for the season.
Quality Road's stud fee will more than double for the 2019 season, Lane's End Farm has announced.
The Keeneland September yearling sale concluded its third of six books Tuesday night on pace for a record renewal.
A total of 271 yearlings sold during Tuesday's session, the eighth of 13 overall, for gross receipts of $19,603,400, led by a $420,000 Quality Road filly. The average price for the session finished at $72,337, while the median was $50,000. The day's buyback rate finished at 28 percent.
Quality Road had a career year in 2017, siring Eclipse Award champions Abel Tasman and Caledonia Road. His momentum has continued this year with a strong summer with his 2-year-olds, capped by Bellafina’s victory in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante.
Bellafina, who finished second in her debut, won her maiden in the Grade 2 Sorrento Stakes. She won the Debutante by 4 1/4 lengths last Saturday.
