Royal Ski – Mick B Quick, by Hasty Road
Trainer: Leon J. Blusiewicz
Owner: Blusiewicz Joanne
Breeder: Jim H. Plemmons
Record: 14 – 4 – 0 – 1
Earnings: $234,495
Foaled on March 24, 1979, at her breeder Jim Plemmons’ then Kent-based Plemmonston Stud, the striking chestnut filly would not only become Washington’s first Grade 1 winner, but is only one of two Washington-breds (the other being fellow Hall of Famer Saratoga Passage) to win two stakes at that level.
Plemmons had purchased Snow Plow’s dam, Mick B Quick, a winning daughter of Hasty Road, for $10,500 (bred to Ward McAllister) at the 1977 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Sale. At that point in time she had already produced three winners, led by Grade 3 Dwyer Handicap third and future Washington stallion Duc De Flanagan.
Plemmons decided to breed Mick B Quick to Royal Ski, a Grade 1-winning son of Raja Baba who was entering stud in 1978 at Murty Farms in Lexington for a $10,000 fee. Royal Ski had won five stakes at two (three graded) and had been ranked second – by one pound – to unbeaten champion Seattle Slew on the Experimental Free Handicap. He would only stand one more season on US soil before being exported to Japan in 1979 where he died at age 30. Among Royal Ski’s some 20 other stakes winners were 1983 Acorn Stakes (G1) winner Ski Goggle and 1990 Japanese champion and classic winner Agnes Flora.
Plemmons had named the future racing star for “her propensity for chasing snowplows on his Washington farm.”
Snow Plow, who turned out to be Mick B Quick’s final foal, was purchased by Maryland-based trainer Leon “Blue” Blusiewicz for $35,000 at the 1980 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.
The 16.3-hand chestnut’s first test came in a Belmont Park seven-panel maiden special weight race on October 3, which she won by a nose with Angel Cordero Jr. aboard.
Next up for the filly – who began her 14-race career in the name of the trainer’s wife, Joanne Blusiewicz – was the $100,000 Selima Stakes (G1) at Laurel Park on October 31. She was one of four supplemental entries for the 1 1/16-mile race. With 16-year-old “Cowboy” Jack Kaenel in the irons, Snow Plow readily drew away to defeat the good filly Ambassador of Luck by 2 1/4 lengths.
Snow Plow then made it three-for-three when she came back on November 15 to take Aqueduct’s nine-furlong Demoiselle Stakes (G1) by 1 1/4 lengths over favorite Larida. Snow Plow – still trained by Blusiewicz and again ridden by Cordero – ran in the name of Stephan Peskoff, who had leased the filly through October 1, 1982.
The race would mark the end of Snow Plow’s juvenile campaign in which she earned $188,921 and was ranked third highest filly (at 118 pounds) behind champion Before Dawn on the Experimental Free Handicap.
Snow Plow returned to the races at three, but the best she could do was win a Meadowlands allowance and finish third in the Magnolia Stakes at Oaklawn Park. She did manage to run fourth in the Kentucky Oaks and Fantasy Stakes, both Grade 1 events.
After an unsuccessful season in 1983, Snow Plow was retired with earnings of $234,495 and a 16.79 SSI.
Bred to 1982 Horse of the Year Conquistador Cielo, Snow Plow was sold for $1.6-million at the Keeneland November sale to Ted Curtin, as agent. That first foal, future Churchill Downs Handicap winner Conquer, was bred by Nelson Bunker Hunt.
Snow Plow unfortunately produced only two other foals, the unplaced Lyphard filly Lynow and one-race winner Nursery Slope, a colt by Green Dancer.
