Let's Not Lose That 'Elusive' Versatility

In terms of his own output, the legacy of Elusive Quality (Gone West) is in pretty safe hands: most notably, those of Quality Road. The question is whether the rest of us can be trusted with it?

For the loss of the Jonabell stallion, earlier this week, extinguishes one of few flickering flames that unite old school breeding with a spirit of adventure and experimentation. Elusive Quality was one of those stallions who dismantled the barriers erected by those who stick nervously to what they know. And in the end, if anything, his versatility probably held him back.

I first came across him when a colt from his debut crop won a maiden at Lingfield in 2002 for my friend Gerard Butler, nowadays assistant to J.J. Pletcher in Ocala. Elusive City went on to win the G2 Richmond S. at Goodwood and the G1 Prix Morny in Deauville, before finishing third to Oasis Dream in the G1 Middle Park S.

Up and running with a precocious turf sprinter, from his next crop Smarty Jones emerged out of Pennsylvania to win the GI Kentucky Derby and then, by 11 1/2 lengths, the GI Preakness, before being reeled in late in the GI Belmont.

Then came Raven's Pass, a top-class miler in Europe who exploited a synthetics window to win the GI Breeders' Cup Classic in 2008.

That, of course, proved something of a crossroads for the sport. At the time, we Europeans condescended to congratulate the Americans for their enlightened self-sacrifice. In the years since, some of us have repented of our own insularity: recognising not only that dirt racing has too precious a heritage to be renounced on such contentious grounds, but also that the Americans have shown far more enterprise in the meantime.

For while they have found due reward, at Royal Ascot, hardly any European horses (with a few honourable exceptions, chiefly from Ballydoyle) have since risked dirt at the Breeders' Cup. With this retrenchment, Elusive Quality was left to extend his adaptability to Australia where his stars included Sepoy (Aus). On dirt, meanwhile, Quality Road emerged as a speed-carrying monster, winning the GI Donn H. by 13 lengths—beating the track record he had himself set in the GI Florida Derby—before adding the GI Met Mile and the GI Woodward.

So Elusive Quality showed that transcending the environmental divisions of the international sport was perfectly within the compass of certain sires, if only horsemen had the wit to try. Not all sires, clearly. As it is, however, people continue to hide behind perceived but largely untested incompatibilities; and Elusive Quality rather came to be viewed as neither fish nor fowl.

Yet how valuable are the other bridge-builders? The likes of Medaglia d'Oro (El Prado {Ire}), or War Front (Danzig), or Scat Daddy (Johannesburg)? And why, if their blood is so precious, do so many breeders persist in believing that turf is turf, dirt is dirt, and never the twain shall meet?

Time after time, after all, the breed has been invigorated by transatlantic cross-pollination. It famously took a Kentucky Derby winner in Northern Dancer, for instance, to stoke up a stagnant European gene pool; but he in turn had benefited from E.P. Taylor's transfusions from Classic bloodlines in Europe.

Straight after Raven's Pass had won the Classic, Elusive Quality found himself shuttling to Brazil. Unsurprisingly, he proved a big success there. But by the time he was retired last year, his Kentucky fee—raised to $100,000 after his flying start—had dwindled to $30,000. His last three books comprised 66, 55 and 32 mares; nor were his yearlings treated like collector's items last fall, mustering a median of just $25,000.

Breeding, of course, is full of enigma and variation. Many people scoff at the infinitesimal genetic strands surviving from prized names lurking deeper down a horse's family tree. Nonetheless some of us find a comfort in a mesh of undiluted class of the kind that underpinned Elusive Quality.

Because it's the stuff in the foreground, paradoxically, that is most out of focus. Even full siblings can be wildly divided by genetic variation. When a pedigree is held together by one Classic seam after another, however, it barely matters which become unstitched.

To that extent, Elusive Quality proved to have been well named.

On the one hand, true, the quality was there for all to see: his genes were hallmarked top to bottom with sires of the old school. Just as a snapshot, those duplicated across his fourth and fifth generations are Nasrullah, three times; and Native Dancer and Princequillo, twice. Oh yes, and the latter makes Somethingroyal—one of the all-time distaff influences—a shared cornerstone between Elusive Quality's sire and dam: her son Secretariat is damsire of Gone West; her grandson Sir Ivor, damsire of Touch Of Greatness (Hero's Honor).

On the other hand, who can say what elusive distillation of all these copper-bottomed influences promoted Elusive Quality—author of precisely two Grade 3 wins, both on turf as a 5-year-old—from a $10,000 start-up to a sire of authentic global reach?

One way or another, anyhow, Native Dancer can be found holding up both sides of Elusive Quality's pedigree: his grandson Mr Prospector as sire of Gone West, and his daughter Natalma in producing Northern Dancer, whose son Hero's Honor sired Touch Of Greatness.

The latter united two clans so saturated in Grade 1 performers—significantly, on both dirt and turf—that you can perfectly understand the ambition in her naming, albeit she was ultimately unraced. Her grand-dam, from the Frizette family, was a Broodmare of the Year; and so was the dam of Hero's Honor, in turn tracing to La Troienne.

All told, then, Elusive Quality brought together a ton of class on both surfaces. Even so, for some people, it all simply boiled down to Gone West—perceived, while contrasting branches were evolving through the likes of Fappiano and Smart Strike, as a conduit of pure Mr Prospector speed. That's all very well when you consider a son like Speightstown, but Gone West was also sire of turf champions Zafonic, Da Hoss and—over a country estate of lawn—Johar.

Elusive Quality, as a runner, certainly bore the speed brand. The King's Bishop was only a Grade II when Honour And Glory (Relaunch) clawed him back at the wire, but he was still raw and a horse called Distorted Humor (Forty Niner) was back in third. (No wonder the race got an upgrade soon after.)

At four, Elusive Quality broke the seven-furlong track record at Gulfstream on his reappearance, but he tended to fold when unable to dominate and ultimately it was the switch of surface, the next season, that provided a platform for his marquee achievement: a world record for a mile on turf of 1.31.63.

Though a strapping individual himself, Elusive Quality didn't always throw lookers at stud. And as a sire of sires he doubtless lost appeal as Smarty Jones collapsed from $100,000 rookie to $7,500. Elusive City quickly became a Classic sire himself, however, and now Quality Road—a more elegant model than his father—is unmistakably breaking into the elite.

First to draw attention to Quality Road, of course, was a Royal Ascot and Breeders' Cup winner on turf in Hootenanny. He was out of a mare by Hennessy, the sire of a crossover champion in Johannesburg—himself responsible for a transatlantic phenomenon in Scat Daddy. Give Quality Road a Deputy Minister mare, on the other hand, and he'll get you Abel Tasman.

We have seen how Elusive Quality's ancestry mixes flavors; and likewise his own contribution to the breed. But so many modern horsemen share a chronic failure of imagination; or at least a failure of nerve. Everyone deplores commercial myopias so long as they don't have to put their money on the line. At market, however, they prove incorrigible.

But if people won't risk mixing dirt and turf lines, they'll end up painting themselves into a corner. Will even the mighty Galileo, who has only translated their sire's influence on turf, ever match the reach—in terms of geography and racing discipline—of El Prado?

Speaking of Galileo, do remember that among European sires in 2017 the only other sires to exceed the black type winners-to-starters ratio of Raven's Pass in 2017 were Dubawi, Frankel, Sea The Stars and Tamayuz. Yes, that Raven's Pass—the one who has taken six fee cuts in a row. No wonder quality is so elusive, when we don't seem to know where to seek it.