Robert Reid Jr.

Champion 2-year-old filly Vequist (Nyquist), winner of the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies at Keeneland last fall, tops the roster of 106 early nominations to the GI Longines Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs Apr. 30. Campaigned by a partnership consisting of Gary Barber, Wachtel Stable and Swillcan Stable and trained by Butch Reid Jr., Vequist is based at Palm Meadows in South Florida and is scheduled to run in Saturday's GII Davona Dale S. at Gulfstream Park. Other top contenders that were nominated to the Oaks include Stonestreet Stables' GIII...

It's remarkable what people can do nowadays. The company co-founded by Tom McGrath converts glass bottles into lightweight construction aggregate. This stuff starts out as curbside recycling, your emptied beers and so on, and ends up supporting you as you drive over a bridge. But then there's nothing like raising and racing Thoroughbreds to show the latent capacities lurking in refuse material. Because Vequist (Nyquist), the champion juvenile filly homebred by McGrath's Swilcan Stable, was rejected in the ring twice over. The first time, she was in utero when her...

Parx-based sophomore Monday Morning Qb (Imagining) is under consideration for Aqueduct's nine-furlong GIII Withers S. Feb. 1, which carries with it GI Kentucky Derby qualifying points. Second behind Saturday's impressive Gulfstream allowance winner Ny Traffic (Cross Traffic) in a Bensalem maiden special weight Oct. 12, the Butch Reid trainee earned an 85 Beyer Speed Figure when graduating back at that venue Nov. 16. He handled his first foray into stakes company with aplomb, taking Laurel's Heft S. over seven panels. "He was kind of tired, it was a big step...