Therapist seeks another winning seasonal debut in $100K Elusive Quality

Eight-time stakes winner Therapist will look to win his seasonal debut for the third consecutive year when he competes in Saturday’s eighth running of the $100,000 Elusive Quality at Belmont Park.

The seven-furlong event for 4-year-olds and up over the outer turf course honors the multiple graded stakes winner who captured the Grade 3 Jaipur [now Grade 1] and Grade 3 Poker in 1998, the latter of which produced a world record time of 1:31.63 for one mile on the turf.

Another quality turf winner, Therapist, owned by Richard Leahy’s Oak Bluff Stable and trained by Christophe Clement, commenced his 4-year-old campaign by winning the 2019 Elusive Quality over a yielding outer turf, where he came from last of six to secure a neck victory. The son of leading New York sire Freud would not register another win until his 2020 debut in the First Defence at Belmont Park, where he edged Majestic Dunhill by a head.

The New York homebred has maintained a consistent 22-9-2-5 record and has never been worse than fourth in his last 13 starts. He enjoyed a prosperous 2020 campaign, with stakes-placings to accomplished New York-breds Rinaldi and Somelikeithotbrown, and won the Artie Schiller on November 14 at Aqueduct.

The Elusive Quality is slated as Race 8 on Belmont’s nine-race Saturday program. First post is 1 p.m. Eastern.