Gun Runner

Leading first-crop sire Gun Runner will see a substantial fee raise for the 2022 breeding season, when his live-foal-stands-and-nurses fee will get a hike to $125,000. He stood for $50,000 in 2021. Gun Runner is the sire of five individual stakes winners, including undefeated multiple Grade I winner Echo Zulu, winner of the Spinaway S. and the Frizette S. He is also the sire of GI Hopeful winner Gunite, as well as Grade II winners Pappacap and Wicked Halo. On the first-crop sire list, he leads by earnings, black type...

Undefeated Echo Zulu (Gun Runner) looks to maintain her position at the top of her division as the headliner in Sunday's GI Frizette S. at Belmont, a "Win and You're In" for the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar next month. The bay earned the 'TDN Rising Star' nod and a 92 Beyer Speed Figure for her impressive 5 1/2-length graduation on debut going 5 1/2 panels at Saratoga July 15. She became the first top-level scorer for her leading freshman sire next out when running the field...

Last year Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen captured both the GI Hopeful S. at Saratoga and GI Champagne S. at Belmont with the fleet-footed Jackie's Warrior (Maclean's Music) and he looks to repeat that feat Saturday when he saddles Gunite (Gun Runner) in this year's Champagne. The stallion-making race offers a spot in the gate for the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile in November. A third-out graduate going six panels at Churchill Downs June 26, Gunite finished second behind 'TDN Rising Star' High Oak (Gormley) in the GII Saratoga Special S....

LEXINGTON, KY - The Keeneland September Yearling Sale lost none of its momentum during a dark day Friday, returning with an opening Book 3 section that featured strong demand from start to finish in Lexington Saturday. During the session, 269 head sold for $45,003,000. The session average was $167,297--up 53.46% from last year's Book 3 opener which was held amidst the uncertainty of the pre-vaccination pandemic--and the median increased 58.82% to $135,000. With just 92 horses reported not sold, the buy-back rate Saturday was 25.48%. It was 40.12% a year...

L and N Racing and Winchell Thoroughbreds' Stellar Tap (Tapit) wowed spectators with a TDN Rising Star-worthy performance at Saratoga Aug. 7 and will try to prove that it wasn't a fluke in Saturday's GIII Iroquois S. at Churchill Downs. Out of a half-sister to GISW Nereid (Rock Hard Ten), the $250,000 KEESEP graduate showed early speed for trainer Steve Asmussen navigating seven furlongs in his debut and turned on all boosters late, drawing away to score by 5 1/4 lengths over Keepcalmcarryon (Union Rags), who won at that venue...

The cyclical nature of our business, from the foaling shed to the race program, invites a length of perspective that can only be of comfort in times of trouble. This, too, shall pass--even a global pandemic. And if COVID disrupted our routines in 2020 as seldom before, with a September Derby and no Saratoga Sale, we appear determined to make as seamless a resumption as its lingering challenges allow. Trade at Saratoga last month was eerily close to 2019. Of 180 hips into the ring for Fasig-Tipton's Select Sale, 135...

by Jessica Martini & Christie DeBernardis LEXINGTON, KY - Bidding was fast and frenetic when the first of two Book 2 sessions of the Keeneland September Yearling Sale opened Wednesday in Lexington, producing the auction's highest-priced offering yet when a colt by City of Light (hip 612) sold for $1.7 million to the partnership of Woodford Racing, Talla Racing and West Point Thoroughbreds. "That was amazing," an ebullient Keeneland vice president of sales Tony Lacy said at the close of business Wednesday. "That was one of the best sale days...

A colt by Gun Runner went to the head of the results sheet when selling for $975,000 to Jacob West at Keeneland Wednesday. West was bidding on behalf of the partnership of Mike Repole and Vinnie Viola. Todd Pletcher will train the youngster. The chestnut colt was consigned by Gainesway on behalf of breeder Winchell Thoroughbreds. He is out of the unraced Time to Tap (Tapit), a full-sister to Winchell's champion filly Untapable and a half to Grade I winner Paddy o'Prado (El Prado {Ire}). Time to Tap is also...

Three yearlings in the Keeneland September Sale catalogue received big updates over the weekend when their year-older siblings captured Grade Is at two of America's premiere race meets over the holiday weekend. GI Runhappy Del Mar Futurity S. winner Pinehurst's (Twirling Candy) yearling half-brother by Cairo Prince sold prior to the juvenile's breakout score, bringing $120,000 from pinhooker Randy Bradshaw at Fasig-Tipton's New York-Bred Yearling Sale in mid-August. However, the winners of the GI TVG Del Mar Debutante S., GI Spinaway S. and GI Hopeful S. will be represented by...

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 1st-KD, $135K, Msw, 2yo, f, 1mT, post time: 1:20 p.m. ET CARIOQUINHA (Gun Runner), listed as a $475,000 Keeneland November weanling, is the latest to make the races for her dam Pure Clan (Pure Prize), a three-time Grade I winner on turf who was purchased by Torrealba Holdings for $4.5 million in foal to Bernardini at KEENOV in 2012. Undefeated at two and also a three-time GSW on the main track, Pure Clan is the dam of two winners from three to start, including Three...

Two sons of Candy Ride (Arg)--Gun Runner and Twirling Candy--were represented by three 2-year-old Grade l winners over the weekend, and do you know one thing they had in common? Each was produced by a Storm Cat-line mare. This affinity for the Storm Cat line was also an important feature of Candy Ride's own success, and breeders appear to be copying that formula with his sons. It's not surprising; it's something that usually happens when a stallion is successful with the females of another sire line, and this type of...

Early in the Saratoga meeting, Steve Asmussen broke the all-time record of number of winners for a North American trainer. It was a remarkable achievement in a remarkable career, and comes at the age of just 55 years old. It turns out he was just warming up. In a remarkable closing rush to the meeting, Asmussen won nine Grade I races in five days, including one a day in each of the last three days of the week when he sent out Echo Zulu to win the Spinaway, Gunite to...