Marjoram

Having last week celebrated a first GI Kentucky Derby winner carrying the venerable black-and-cherry silks of the Phipps family, today we remind ourselves that the man who postponed that moment for 37 years has since built an iconic legacy of his own. In thwarting Easy Goer with Sunday Silence, in 1989, Arthur B. Hancock III secured parallel boons for the modern breed. One, of course, required the agency of those far-sighted Japanese breeders who made Sunday Silence one of its most vital influences. But the other is Hancock's own farm,...

8th-Churchill Downs, $117,975, Msw, 11-22, 2yo, f, 6 1/2f, 1:19.17, sy, 3/4 length. MARJORAM (f, 2, Quality Road--Cardamon, by Pioneerof the Nile), a Juddmonte homebred and full-sibling to this summer's GIII Mahony Stakes winner Spiced Up, debuted Saturday at 3-1 under Louisville's twin spires. The bay juvenile was a joint and distant last through the :22.68 first quarter, rushed up to fourth going into the far turn, continued to advance as the clock stopped in :46.25 for the half, and swung wide to take command down the lane. Frontrunner Kayla's...

8th-CD, $120k, Msw, 2yo, f, 6 1/2f, post time: 4:25 p.m. ET Juddmonte's MARJORAM (Quality Road) is the second foal to race from Cardamon (Pioneerof the Nile), a debut winner over this surface back in 2019 and already responsible for this year's GIII Mahony Stakes hero and similarly cleverly named Spiced Up, also a son of this Lane's End stallion. Cardamon is one of six winners out of Soothing Touch (Touch Gold), also the dam of MGISW Emollient (Empire Maker); SW & GISP Hofburg (Tapit); and SW & GSP Courtier...