Waralo breaks through in Elusive Quality, earns first stakes victory

Waralo finally got the stakes line his record had been missing, and he did it the way a hard-knocking New York-bred turf sprinter is supposed to do it. The 7-year-old gelding went straight to the front in the $150,000 Elusive Quality Stakes at Belmont at the Big A and never gave up control, hanging on to beat Twenty Six Black by 1 1/2 lengths in 1:09.23 on firm outer turf.

For a horse who had already built a long, productive career, the breakthrough carried real weight. Waralo entered with a 23-for-9-7-2 record and $380,805 in earnings, but his lone black-type placing had been a runner-up finish in the 2025 New York Turf Sprint Championship. On Friday, under Ricardo Santana Jr. for trainer Chris Englehart and owner My Purple Haze Stables, he put that consistency to work in the sharpest way possible, posting fractions of :22.37, :45.49 and :57.13 before finishing the job.

The race fit him perfectly. The Elusive Quality drew 18 original nominations and six supplements, and the final field included other accomplished turf sprinters, most notably Twenty Six Black, who came in off a 2025 campaign that featured stakes wins in the Disco Partner and New York Turf Sprint Championship. But on this day, the rival with the résumé could not reel in Waralo once he had the lead and the rail-running pace advantage. Clock Tower finished third.

The race also carried a strong New York-bred message. Waralo, a dark bay or brown gelding foaled May 29, 2019, was bred in New York by Casey Newick LLC, and his victory added a homegrown success to a high-profile Belmont at the Big A stakes program. In a crowded national racing weekend, that mattered. New York racing got a local winner in a race that showcased exactly what the state-bred turf sprint division can produce: speed, durability and horses that can keep delivering when placed in the right spot.

Waralo’s win was not a fluke or a sudden jump forward. It was the payoff for a horse that had kept showing up, kept hitting the board and finally found the right six-furlong setup to turn consistency into a stakes victory. For a veteran built on grit rather than flash, the Elusive Quality was the breakthrough years in the making.