Claiborne Breeders' Futurity Winner Essential Quality Highlights Roller-Coaster Day for Cox

With three runners at Keeneland and seven runners in stakes at Pimlico Saturday, trainer Brad Cox spent much of his afternoon watching races either trackside or on his phone.

“It was a roller coaster all day,” Cox said. “A couple favorites won at Pimlico – Juliet Foxtrot (GB) in the Gallorette (G3) and Factor This in the Dinner Party (G2) – and some that were not up to the task. Then Bonny South (beaten a diminishing neck in the George E. Mitchell Black-Eyed Susan -G2), she ran a winning race.”

Forty minutes after the near miss by Bonny South, Godolphin’s homebred Essential Quality delivered a tour de force at Keeneland in the $400,000 Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity (G1) with a 3¼-length victory.

“Anytime you can win a Grade 1, it’s fantastic,” Cox said of Essential Quality’s triumph that secured a fees-paid berth into the $2 million TVG Juvenile (G1) Presented by Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance to be run here Nov. 6.

“He has been a good colt right from the start. He will go back to Churchill this afternoon to more of his comfort zone.”