I Told you Quality Road was Nothing to F with

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, AndyDisco on Twitter



I plagiarized this from here. Steve Crist can tell it better than I can.

Quality Road's powerful runaway in the Donn Handicap Saturday earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 121, the highest awarded to any race since Midnight Lute's 124 in the 2007 Forego and the highest in a race longer than a mile since the Commentator-Saint Liam Whitney of 2005. (Update: Revised from a preliminary 122 to a final 121 Sunday morning.)

Breaking his own track record of 1:47.72, set winning last year's Florida Derby, Quality Road won by 12 3/4 lengths in 1:47.49 over a track that was not particularly quick in the day's other five dirt races. The only other dirt race on the Saturday card at the nine-furlong distance was the opener, where $6250 older-filly claimers were timed in 1:53.18. Three one-mile races went in 138.04 (older males $25k claimers), 1:38.44 (3yo Alw N1x) and 138.51 (OF N1x) and the day's lone dirt sprint, for 3-year-old maidens, was run in 123.22.

Quality Road's performance looked as good as it comes up on paper. He stalked Past the Point through six furlongs in 1:09.87, shot past and extended his lead from 5 lengths after a mile in 1:34.78 to more than a dozen at the wire. Granted, he was the only Grade 1 winner in the Donn, but the second- and third place finishers had each won four graded stakes including the G2 Suburban (Dry Martini) and G2 Ohio Derby (Delightful Kiss). It was a huge effort against a respectable field, one worth savoring:

That's how I roll.