Can Quality Road get any hotter? Will he become, at the young age of 13, this year’s leading sire? It’s awfully early to prognosticate, but with his son, City of Light, winning the Pegasus S.-G1 on January 25, his get’s earnings went up by four million dollars.

Certainly his book, at Lane’s End in Versailles, Kentucky, has been full for a long time, but if anybody hasn’t taken notice yet, Quality Road certainly looks like the next big stallion, perhaps the rightful heir to the great Storm Cat, the last breed altering sire in the thoroughbred business.

City of Light has a classic Quality Road pedigree, with intense inbreeding to Northern Dancer, through Hero’s Honor and Nijinsky II on his sire’s side, and through Deputy Minister and Somethingfabulous, on his dam’s side. This pedigree is unusual in that it features two own sons of Northern Dancer, Hero’s Honor and Somethingfabulous, so close up in the pedigree, 5 x 4, making him 5 x 6 x 5 x 4 Northern Dancer. It should be noted that his dam, Paris Notion, is by Dehere, one of the most promising of broodmare sires, with his Secretariat dam, Sister Dot.

We must also note that Secretariat’s great blue hen dam, Somethingroyal, appears 5 x 7 x 5 x 3 in the pedigree of City of Light, an amazing concentration of her blood, twice through Secretariat, but also once through Sir Ivor and once through her other son, Somethingfabulous.

This variety of ways back to Somethingroyal is rarely seen in contemporary pedigrees, making it no accident that daughters of Quality Road have achieved at the highest level, as they have that huge heart gene that Somethingroyal bestows upon those in whose pedigree she appears. Clearly, City of Light has this as well.

Quality Road’s $150,000 stud fee for 2019 has begun to look like a bargain, and those who booked their Dehere mares early should pat themselves on their backs. As should Lane’s End, where their belief in this young stallion has paid off more than anyone could have imagined.

We salute Quality Road, who may well be 2019’s leading sire, and who may occupy that coveted spot for years to come.

-- Roberta Smoodin