As the sire of a Kentucky Derby winner and a Breeders’ Cup Classic winner, Elusive Quality is among an elite band of Kentucky-based stallions but his appeal and success is much farther reaching than just the shores of North America.
During his time spent shuttling to Australia, he sired the Group One heroine Camarilla and Stakes winners Bernicia, Cardinal Virtue, Listen Here and Related. While in Europe, his best runners have included the British-trained G1 Prix Morny winner Elusive City, who went on to become Europe’s leading first-season sire in 2008, and, of course, Raven’s Pass, trained in Newmarket by John Gosden and brought to Santa Anita to down the colours of Curlin et al in the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Classic.
These two top-flight winners do not, however, offer mere rare moments of success for Elusive Quality in Britain. In fact, with 48 per cent winners to runners, Elusive Quality tops the all-comers table for percentage of winning two-year-olds in Britain in the four seasons to the end of 2009 (for all active stallions with 50 or more runners from 2006-2009 inclusive). Those juveniles achieved a median rating of 79, again the highest achieved by any active stallion with 50 or more runners, while for horses of all ages during the same period, Elusive Quality’s offspring recorded a median Timeform rating of 80, comparing favourably with his compatriots Kingmambo on 84, Dynaformer on 82, Giant’s Causeway on 78 and Mr Greeley on 77.
Back home in the US, Elusive Quality’s Grade One winners also include Maryfield and last year’s Florida Derby winner Quality Road, who was prevented a run at Triple Crown honours owing to quarter cracks but is already back with a vengeance in 2010 with another Graded Stakes win at Gulfstream Park, in the G3 Hal’s Hope Stakes on January 3. The four-year-old also landed last season’s G2 Fountain Of Youth Stakes and G2 Amsterdam Stakes before finishing runner-up in the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup.
Among Elusive Quality’s leading two-year-olds last season was Roan Inish, who landed a memorable first Stakes victory at Woodbine for rookie Canadian trainer Carolyn Costigan, a graduate of the Darley Flying Start course, and Elusive Pimpernel, another British-trained colt, who broke the track record when winning the G3 Acomb Stakes at York. He only surrendered his unbeaten tag on his final outing of the season when finishing runner-up to the outstanding St Nicholas Abbey in the G1 Racing Post Trophy, arguably the best juvenile contest of the 2009 European season. Elusive Pimpernel is currently fourth favourite in the winter betting market to give trainer John Dunlop his third victory in the Derby at Epsom.
