CITY of Light boosted his career earnings to $5.66 million at the weekend when he picked up a winner’s purse of $4 million after landing the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes at Gulfstream Park. This was his first start since winning the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt and it was a bonus success on his way to start his stud career at Lane’s End at a fee of $35,000, standing alongside his sire.

Never out of the first three in 11 starts, City Of Light (Quality Road) had previously won the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes and Grade 1 Triple Bend Stakes. Bred in Kentucky by Ann Marie Farm, he sold as a yearling at Keeneland for $710,000 to Walnut Green. The best of three stakes-performers and six winners for his unraced dam, Paris Notion (Dehere), he is a grandson of Grade 1 winner Fabulous Notion (Somethingfabulous) and she bred seven winners including the Grade 1 Test Stakes heroine Fabulously Fast (Deputy Minister).

This is not the only connection Ann Marie Farm has had with the family. Having purchased Paris Notion’s younger half-sister Paris Rose (Accelerator) for $32,000 as a yearling, they sent her to Dehere (Deputy Minister) and the result was Decelerator. Sold for $35,000 as a yearling, she sold the following spring as a breezer for $250,000 and went on to earn $367,000 with five wins that were headed by the Grade 3 Debutante Stakes at Churchill Downs.

In spite of her fine race record, she was then sold for only $300,000 as a four-year-old and travelled to Australia. There she is dam of Nafaayes (Exceed And Excel) and that filly made her way to South Africa where last year she won the Group 2 Ipi Tombe Challenge.

Go back one more remove and you will find a plethora of good winners, some of which have been successful in Europe. Careless Notion (Jester) is the third dam of City Of Lights and this stakes-placed mare bred six winners. In addition to Fabulous Notion, she also produced the Grade 1 Turf Classic winner Cacoethes (Alydar) who was a smart runner in Europe when trained by Guy Harwood. He finished third to Nashwan and Terimon in the Group 1 Derby at Epsom.

Among the best known performers descending from Careless Notion are Grade 1 Hollywood Derby winner Subordination (Mt Livermore), Grade 1 Alabama Stakes winner Careless Jewel (Tapit), champion Fiji (Rainbow Quest), Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes winner Java’s War (War Pass) and Group 2 Grand Prix de Chantilly winner Capri (Generous).

The five-year-old City Of Light is from the third crop of Quality Road (Elusive Quality) and half of his eight wins were at Grade 1 level. They were the Donn Handicap and Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park, the Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont and the Woodward Stakes at Saratoga. He has nine Grade 1 winners to date, including Abel Tasman, leading 2018 juvenile Bellafina and the Barronstown Stud-bred Hootenanny.

For 2019 Quality Road sees one of the biggest jumps in stud fee, going from $70,000 to $150,000 following on from his meteoric success.