Essential Quality has the speed and stamina to win the Kentucky Derby

The gray son of Tapit is also littered with classic bloodlines. Tapit, a three-time champion sire, has produced 88 graded stakes winners, 27 Grade 1 winners, eight division champions and six Breeders’ Cup champions. His sire, Pulpit, is the grandsire of the 2014 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner California Chrome. On Essential Quality’s dam side is speed galore. Elusive Quality, Essential Quality’s maternal grandsire, broke the track record for seven furlongs at Gulfstream in 1997, then a year later broke the world record for a mile on the turf. His progeny includes Smarty Jones (winner of the 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, and a second-place finisher in the Belmont Stakes) and Breeders’ Cup Sprint champion Roy H.