By Dick Jerardi
When Disco Ebo crossed the finish line first in Saturday’s $100,000 Primonetta Stakes at Laurel Park, it continued one of the most amazing horse sagas which just happened to begin at the very same track almost 17 years ago.
It was Aug. 15, 2007 when Katarica Disco won her debut by 13 1/4 lengths at 66-1 over a field of maiden $16,000 claimers. The filly then won an allowance race before finishing far back in the Maryland Million Distaff. She never ran again and finished with career earnings of $26,940, But her story was just beginning.
The mare just turned 20 on March 5. Katarica Disco is a Maryland bred for Steve and Susan Quick’s St. Omer’s Farm located in Harford County, Md. Fifteen miles away at the Quicks’ son and daughter-in-law’s WynOaks Farm just across the Pennsylvania border, she regularly met up with the stallion Weigelia and the results were magic.
And nobody knows that better than trainer Butch Reid and owner Glenn Bennett whose LC Racing have owned so many of the mare’s foals solo or in partnership.
Katarica Disco’s 11 foals to race have 305 starts, with 67 wins, 69 seconds and 40 thirds for earnings of $3,578,165.
The Quicks have made nice scores with all that Pa. sired and Pa. bred money. Reid and Bennett have been part of at least $2.7 million in purse money after they purchased the full brothers and sisters at sales or privately.
Check out this list: Smooth B (56-10-13-8 $818,267), Disco Ebo (22-11-3-2 $658,544), Disco Rose (36-4-9-4 $449,280), Fat Kat (29-9-5-4 $423,318) and Fore Harp (23-6-4-5 $325,542). Reid and Bennett also had Pink Princess (66-16-19-7 $572,135) for part of her career where she was often claimed. (Chuck Zacney’s Cash Is King has been partners in several of the foals, including Disco Ebo).
“They were good for me so I was going to buy everyone no matter what,” Bennett said. “It wasn’t like I was paying a lot of money for them.” (Disco Ebo cost $52,000 at Timonium in 2020).
By the way, Weigelia has done pretty well himself even when not bred to Karatica Disco. His offspring have made 3,879 starts with 540 wins, 493 seconds, 489 thirds and earnings of $17,620,017. The horse himself won more than $1 million in a 48-race career (13 wins) that included a victory in the Carry Back at Calder and a second in the 2004 King’s Bishop at Saratoga.
Weigelia’s son Beren has lit it up at Parx for years with earnings of $897,970. He is owned by St. Omer’s and Christopher Feifarek and, yes, trained by Reid.
So, the sire has been really good, but, together with Katarica Disco, they have been golden. Her foals account for a bit less than 8 percent of Weigelia’s offspring’s total starts and just more than 20 percent of his offspring’s career earnings.
And that last number is only going to go up. Fore Harp is entered in Saturday’s King T. Leatherbury Stakes at Laurel Park. Disco Ebo is as good as she’s ever been. The story continues.
