At a glance
- Status: In training
- Colt, Ontario-bred, foaled May 13, 2023
- By Essential Quality out of Astrollinthepark
- Trainer: Kevin Attard
- Acquired at the 2024 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October Yearlings Sale
- Owned in partnership with breeder Anderson Farms
Behind the name
Born in Tara Ontario in 1884, Fred ‘Cyclone’ Taylor was the greatest hockey player of his time and the sport’s first-ever star. A blistering fast skater and prolific scorer, Taylor played professionally from 1906 to 1922 (16 years), won five scoring championships, had his name etched on the Stanley Cup twice, and holds the remarkable record of being named to the First All-Star team from 1900 to 1918 and in every league he ever played in.
Far quicker than his linemates, Taylor was frequently called offside so his coaches moved him farther back to better use his speed and creativity. He played as a rover (a player who roamed the ice at will without a set position) and as cover-point (an early version of an offensive defenceman).
After moving from Southern Ontario to Manitoba in 1906 to compete in the strongest amateur league on the continent, Taylor quickly left for Michigan to play for two years in the world’s first professional hockey league, the International Hockey League. He scored 11 goals in the six games he played for Portage Lakes and led the team to win the 1906 IHL championship. The next season, he played in 23 games and the team repeated as league champions.
Cyclone Taylor was considered Canada’s equivalent of Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey.
Taylor earned his iconic nickname after returning to Canada to play with the Ottawa Senators in the pro ECHA league, lured by an offer that also included a side job as a clerk in the immigration branch of the federal Department of the Interior. After watching Taylor score five goals in his first game, Earl Grey, the Governor General of Canada, was overheard by an Ottawa Free Press reporter saying “that man is a cyclone if I ever saw one.” In his next season with the Senators, Cyclone Taylor won his first Stanley Cup, the championship trophy of Canadian hockey.
In an era when players stayed on the ice for 60 minutes without a substitute, Taylor was by far the best skater in the game with a reputation for phenomenal speed and spectacular rushes. “My speed was an advantage and the rest was courage and condition,” recalled Taylor in an interview in 1968. “Once I passed an opponent, I didn’t have to worry about him anymore.”
Taylor became the highest-paid athlete in the world.
When the Renfrew Creamery Kings signed him to play in the National Hockey Association (the direct predecessor of the NHL), Cyclone Taylor and Ty Cobb became the highest paid athletes in their respective sports. Since Taylor’s salary for playing 12 games a season was only slightly less than what Cobb was paid for 154 games, Taylor was the highest-paid athlete in the world on a per game basis.
In 1912, Taylor moved to British Columbia where he gave legitimacy to the new Pacific Coast Hockey Association and played for the Vancouver Millionaires for the rest of his career. He won the league’s scoring title five times along with his second Cup in 1915 after he scored six goals in a three-game sweep of the Senators.
Taylor also made it to two other Stanley Cup finals. Playing in the 1918 final series against Toronto as the league MVP, he scored nine goals and set an NHL-era Stanley Cup Finals record that remains unbroken. In his nine seasons and 150 games in the PCHA, Cyclone recorded 177 goals and 108 assists.
Billed as the “Ty Cobb of hockey”, Taylor was instrumental in selling the game to the American audience. In the 1920’s, his appearances in Pittsburgh, Boston and New York helped set the wheels in motion for those cities to join the NHL.
After hanging up his skates at the age of 36, Taylor remained in Vancouver, working for the Canadian government and serving as the inaugural president of the Pacific Coast Hockey League from 1936 to 1940. Having kept his immigration career, he eventually rose to became the Commissioner of Immigration for British Columbia and the Yukon, the highest position in the region. Before his retirement in 1950, he was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire.
Cyclone Taylor was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1947. When the Hall started construction on its new building in 1961, he turned the first sod. He was inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame in 1966. When the Vancouver Canucks’ joined the NHL in 1970, it was Taylor who dropped the puck in the ceremonial face-off at their first home game. In 1975, he was voted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.
Taylor’s impact on the game continued after his death in 1979 at the age of 94:
- Cyclone’s grandson, Mark Taylor, played in the NHL from 1981 to 1986 with the Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals.
- Each year, the Vancouver Canucks award the Cyclone Taylor trophy to the team’s MVP.
- The Cyclone Taylor Cup has been hoisted by the champion of BC’s Junior B league since 1966.
- The junior hockey team in Taylor’s hometown of Listowel, Ontario is called the Cyclones.
- The street that rounds Ottawa’s Scotiabank Place arena is Cyclone Taylor Boulevard.
- Taylor’s oldest son, Fred Jr., started the Cyclone Taylor Sports chain and 64 years later their four sporting goods stores are still going strong in BC’s Lower Mainland.
- Cyclone Taylor was the first hockey player to wear pads on his shoulders after he sewed strips of felt into his undershirt.
- Cyclone Taylor’s mom is believed to have invented hockey shin pads. When she sewed layers of felt into his long underwear to provide some protection, other players soon followed the example. By 1910, “Hockey Knickers” were available at Eaton’s for $1 a pair.
About the sire
New York-bred Essential Quality is a multiple graded stakes winner and the top money-earner in America from Tapit, America’s most dominant sire and all-time leader by earnings. Essential Quality is only the seventh colt in the 53-year history of the Eclipse Awards to be named Champion at both two and three years of age.
As a 2-year-old, Essential Quality won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and the Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity, both 8.5-furlong, grade I races on the dirt at Keeneland.
As a 3-year-old, Essential Quality was dominant on the dirt finishing first in the G1 Belmont Stakes (12 furlongs), the G1 Travers Stakes (10 furlongs), the G2 Blue Grass Stakes (9 furlongs), the G2 Jim Dandy Stakes (9 furlongs), and the G3 Southwest Stakes (8.5 furlongs). He also finished third in the Breeders’ Cup Classic that year.
Essential Quality retired after 10 starts with a record of 8-0-2 and $4,905,144 in purse earnings. Currently standing in Kentucky for a $50,000 stud fee, his first yearlings arrived in 2024 of which our colt is one. Five sold for more than $500,000 each.
Essential Quality’s dam was graded stakes placed Delightful Quality who retired with a record of 2-8-2 in 13 starts. She was sired by Kentucky-bred Elusive Quality (9-3-2 in 20 starts, $413,284 in earning) out of Kentucky-bred dam Contrive who was sired by Pennsylvania-bred Storm Cat. A major impact sire, Storm Cat topped the general sire list twice, the juvenile sire list a record seven times, and ranked second on the all-time Breeders’ Cup sire list.
About the dam
Multiple stakes winner and graded stakes placed Kentucky-bred Astrollinthepark retired from racing with a record of 4-4-3 in 20 starts. Her racing career included two wins and a second place finish in black-type stakes and another second in a G3 race. She registered 3-digit eSpeeds six times in her career before being bought for $190,000 at the 2019 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale.
Astrollinthepark was sired by Kentucky-bred Devine Park who earned $612,935 with six wins in nine starts including a first place finishes at Belmont in both the G1 Metropolitan Handicap and the G3 Westchester Handicap, as well as in the G3 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct. Devine Park registered 3-digit eSpeeds in six of his starts maxing out at 123.
The dam of Astrollinthepark was sired by Florida-bred Quiet American who went 4-3-1 in 12 starts winning $754,650 with first place finishes in the G1 NYRA Handicap Mile and the G3 San Diego Handicap and seconds in two other grade I races.
