10 Pedigree fun facts: Track Phantom

Mar 21, 2024 Kellie Reilly/Brisnet.com

Track Phantom’s sire, Quality Road, never got the chance to justify his early favoritism for the 2009 Kentucky Derby (G1), but the well-bred stallion is exerting his influence on the 2024 trail.

Track Phantom has another red-hot influence on his mother’s side. He’s out of Miss Sunset, a Grade 2 winner by leading sire Into Mischief.

Here are 10 pedigree fun facts for Track Phantom:

1. Sire Quality Road is also the grandsire of champion Fierceness.

Quality Road displayed exceptional brilliance on the racetrack, setting track records from 6 1/2 furlongs at Saratoga to 1 1/8 miles (twice) at Gulfstream Park. He’s transmitting that trademark quality, through such progeny as 2023 Preakness (G1) winner National Treasure and 2018 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1) star City of Light, who both went on to win the lucrative Pegasus World Cup (G1); juvenile champions Corniche and Caledonia Road; and 2017 Kentucky Oaks (G1) queen Abel Tasman.

Quality Road’s daughter Impel is the early favorite in this year’s Kentucky Oaks, and aside from Track Phantom, Quality Road has another Derby candidate in Agate Road.

Moreover, Quality Road’s potent genes are expressing themselves into a successive generation. His $5.6 million-earner City of Light is already establishing Quality Road as a sire of sires. City of Light has himself sired a couple of current Derby hopefuls in champion Fierceness and well-regarded Conquest Warrior. Daughters of Quality Road are beginning to emerge as producers, including the mothers of Derby contender Hades and the promising Corporate Power.

2. World record-setting grandsire Elusive Quality is the sire of Smarty Jones.

Quality Road is by Elusive Quality, who captured the 1998 Poker H. (G3) at Belmont Park in world-record time for a mile on turf. But he had spent most of his career sprinting on dirt, also establishing a seven-furlong track record at Gulfstream Park.

By Mr. Prospector’s son Gone West, the versatile Elusive Quality became a sire of international import with champions on five continents. His best U.S. runner was Smarty Jones, the 2004 Derby and Preakness winner who lost his perfect record, and the Triple Crown, in a Belmont (G1) heartbreaker. (In 2021, a maternal grandson of Elusive Quality, Essential Quality, would win that elusive Belmont.) Elusive Quality’s European champions include Raven’s Pass, who plundered the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1), and his speed-laden Australian son Sepoy ranked as a two-time champion.

3. Quality Road is out of a sister to champion Ajina.

Quality Road’s dam (mother), Kobla, is a full sister to Ajina, who clinched champion three-year-old filly honors in the 1997 Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1).

Representing the same connections as Hall of Famer Cigar, Ajina was trained by Bill Mott for the late Allen Paulson. She also landed that summer’s Mother Goose (G1) and Coaching Club American Oaks (G1) while placing in the Acorn (G1), Alabama (G1), and Beldame (G1).

4. Kobla’s sire, Strawberry Road, was an Australian superstar who just missed in the Breeders’ Cup.

Kobla and Ajina are daughters of the celebrated globetrotter Strawberry Road. Horse of the Year in his native Australia, where he won four Group 1s topped by the coveted Cox Plate (G1) in 1983, Strawberry Road took his game on the road to the Northern Hemisphere and embellished his resume.

During his sojourn in Europe, Strawberry Road garnered the 1984 Grosser Preis von Baden (G1) that made him a champion in Germany. The following year, the grandson of the all-time great Nijinsky II added France’s Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud (G1) and Prix d’Harcourt (G2).

In the fall of 1985, Strawberry Road came within a neck of taking the Breeders’ Cup Turf (G1), foiled only by the sublime rail run of the British filly Pebbles. He became a fixture on the Southern California turf circuit in 1986. Scoring in the Arcadia H. (G2), Strawberry Road collected more minor awards to go along with his previous stateside placings in the 1984 Washington D.C. International (G1) and 1985 Turf Classic (G1) at Belmont Park.

5. Kobla’s dam is by Alydar and out of a Royal Ascot winner.

Kobla is out of Grade 2 winner Winglet, a daughter of Hall of Famer Alydar and Irish champion filly Highest Trump. Alydar has a permanent place in racing history as the runner-up to Affirmed in all three jewels of the 1978 Triple Crown, especially his effort to push Affirmed to the limit in an epic Belmont battle.

As a sire, Alydar had more success in the classics through his Hall of Fame sons Alysheba (the 1987 Derby/Preakness champ) and Easy Goer (in the 1989 Belmont). Alydar joined the club of sires responsible for two Derby winners when Strike the Gold wore the roses in 1991.

Highest Trump was herself a Kentucky-bred who began her career in Europe. Her signature win came in the 1974 Queen Mary (G2) at Royal Ascot, a performance that earned her the title of champion two-year-old filly based in Ireland. At three, Highest Trump placed in the Irish 1000 Guineas (G1) and Coronation (G2).

6. Track Phantom’s dam, Miss Sunset, was a classy sprinter.

Miss Sunset won 10 of 20 starts, placed in five others, and bankrolled $891,895 while competing almost exclusively in stakes.

Although she won at up to a mile on turf, in the Campanile S. at Golden Gate Fields, and finished a close second in the 1 1/16-mile Melair S., Miss Sunset was primarily a sprinter. The California-bred scored seven of her nine stakes victories in state-restricted company, but she proved her graded class in a pair of significant events at Keeneland.

Miss Sunset prevailed as the favorite in the 2017 Raven Run (G2), where Pretty City Dancer, the dam of champion Pretty Mischievous, was only eighth. Back over the same track and seven-furlong trip in the 2018 Madison (G1), Miss Sunset was denied in a photo finish by Finley’sluckycharm, who is now the dam of leading Japanese classic contender Sixpence.

7. Into Mischief is also the damsire of a Breeders' Cup Classic winner.

Into Mischief is well known as the sire of Derby winners Authentic (2020) and Mandaloun (2021), and his Grade 1 star Timberlake could make it three this year. Into Mischief’s paternal grandsons Mystik Dan and Domestic Product give him even more chances on the 2024 trail.

But Into Mischief is also beginning to turn up in pedigrees through his daughters. Reigning Breeders’ Cup Classic hero White Abarrio; Alva Starr and Cilla, half-sisters who both won the Prioress (G2); and streaking sprinter Hot Fudge are out of Into Mischief mares. That tally will grow in time, as his oldest daughters are still just 14 years of age.

8. Miss Sunset’s damsire Trippi looms large in other Derby hopefuls’ pedigrees.

Miss Sunset is out of a mare by the speedy Trippi, who was one of Todd Pletcher’s quartet in his debut Derby as a trainer in his own right. While Trippi managed to wire the 1 1/8-mile Flamingo (G3), he was burned up in the hot pace in the 2000 Run for the Roses and retreated to 11th behind Fusaichi Pegasus. Trippi thrived when cutting back to sprints and won three more graded stakes, including the Vosburgh (G1) over older horses.

Initially at stud in Florida, Trippi furnished several major winners before being exported to South Africa, where he became an outstanding sire. One of his U.S. headliners, $880,915-earner Miss Macy Sue, has turned out to be a “blue hen” broodmare securing his legacy at home.

Miss Macy Sue is the dam of hot young sire Not This Time and another proven stallion, Liam’s Map. Both are responsible for Road to the Kentucky Derby prep race winners this season. Not This Time’s son No More Time captured the Sam F. Davis (G3) before just missing in the Tampa Bay Derby (G3), and Liam’s Map has unbeaten Gotham (G3) winner Deterministic along with Lecomte (G3) third Lat Long.

9. Ancestress Icelandic Dancer is inbred to Northern Dancer through lesser-known conduits.

Breed-shaper Northern Dancer, the 1964 Kentucky Derby champion, often appears multiple times in pedigrees through familiar avenues. But Track Phantom’s great-grandmother (third dam in the female line), Icelandic Dancer, sports two crosses that are seldom seen.

Icelandic Dancer is by Eskimo, a lesser son of Northern Dancer who went 5-for-43 in his career, winning a minor stakes at Keystone (now Parx Racing) and placing in the Forego H. (G2) and Red Smith H. (G2).

Icelandic Dancer’s dam, Intrinsic Dancer, is by the royally-bred Akureyri. A son of Hall of Famer Buckpasser, Akureyri is out of Northern Dancer’s prolific daughter Royal Statute (dam of multiple Group 1-winning champion Awaasif and ancestress of such luminaries as Lammtarra, Bosra Sham, and Hong Kong supremo Golden Sixty).

Akureyri is best known for his upset win in the 1981 Fountain of Youth (G3), edging future Derby champ Pleasant Colony and the odds-on Lord Avie. As a juvenile, Akureyri also crossed the wire first in the Remsen (G2), only to be demoted to third.

10. Track Phantom’s remote female line has delivered five Derby winners.

This maternal line belongs to the family labeled 4-m, also the clan of Derby scorers Sunny’s Halo (1983), Venetian Way (1960), Middleground (1950), Lawrin (1938), and Day Star (1878).

Track Phantom shares the same late 19th-century ancestress, Jaconet, as Lawrin. Jaconet is in turn a daughter of the celebrated Maggie B B, who is the ancestress (via another daughter, Red and Blue) of Middleground, Venetian Way, and Sunny’s Halo. Day Star goes a bit further back in the family tree, descending from Maggie B B’s own grandmother, the tap-root mare Magnolia.