Gunite

2026 Mating Plans: Marc Wampler, Pocket Aces Racing and Somewhere Stables

Marc Wampler has been involved with racing since 1993 and currently is the racing manager and bloodstock agent for Pocket Aces Racing as well as offering similar services to private clientele. When breeding, the first thing Wampler asks his clients is whether they are breeding a racehorse or a sales horse. He says he believes it's an important initial step in the process as the pool of potential stallions to use varies depending on the answer. "If breeding to race, the stud book offers many options and an opportunity to...

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Mating Plans: Brandywine Farm

Brandywine Farm (Jim & Pam Robinson) started in 1974 in North Carolina where Pam Directed the Graduate Program in Sports Medicine and the Research Lab in Human Performance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Jim is a professional electrical engineer and was promoted to Director of Transmission and Protection for General Telephone and Electronics. After 25 years in North Carolina, the broodmare band had grown to 100 mares in addition to standing five stallions. While selling at the Keeneland November Sale in 1998, we looked at several...

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Kentucky Value Sires For 2026: Part 4–The 20-Somethings

The band we reach today, between $20,000 and $29,999, perhaps represents the sweet spot of the entire pyramid. It features sires of adequate achievement to have elevated themselves clear of the basement, yet without obtaining the kind of commercial luster that puts them beyond mortal pockets. The most established names retain their customary place on our Value Podium, not least as a tremendous route to proving a mare; but this tier also features one or two that could be on the point of cycling through delayed rewards for their early...

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Repole Nabs Not This Time's Whitethorn for $475K at KEENOV Monday

With numbers continuing to surpass the 2024 standard, Monday's seventh session of the Keeneland November Sale closed out another day of strong trade, highlighted by a gross of $234,253,000, up from $181,460,500 generated one year ago. Average through seven sessions increased 25.34% to $141,886, while the median showed a sharp rise, up 40.35% to $80,000 this year. The RNAs to this point decreased from 470 in 2024 to 424 this term. Conversely, session 7 saw RNAs rise to 58, increasing from 49 one year ago, while 259 head drew an...

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Wasabi 'Ventures' Into Deeper Water at Keeneland November

After dipping a toe into the pool with their very first consignment at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearlings Sale in September, Wasabi Ventures Sales dove right into the deep end with a seven-strong group of horses to sell at Keeneland November during Monday's seventh session. The newest branch of the Wasabi family, the consignment is an offshoot of Wasabi Ventures Stables, created by TK and Michele Pesula Kuegler in 2017. Previously based in the Mid-Atlantic, the pair purchased a farm, now named Serendipity Springs, in Lexington, KY in 2024. "We...

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Dam of Juvenile Fillies Victress Super Corredora Supplemented to Book 1 of Keeneland November

Super Simple (Super Saver), the dam of GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies heroine Super Corredora (Gun Runner), has been supplemented to Book 1 of the Keeneland November sale and will go through the ring Tuesday as part of the opening day, the auction house announced Sunday afternoon. The dam is catalogued as HIP 225, and will be consigned by Denali Stud as agent for Woodford Thoroughbreds. She will be offered in foal to Gunite (Gun Runner). Super Simple is a half-sister to SW Simple Surprise (Cowboy Cal)--herself dam of the...

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Gun Runner Filly Super Corredora Romps In Two-Turn Bow at Santa Anita

6th-Santa Anita, $61,000, Msw, 10-11, 2yo, f, 1m, 1:37.83, ft, 8 1/4 lengths. SUPER CORREDORA (f, 2, Gun Runner--Super Simple, by Super Saver), a debut fifth to subsequent GISP La Wally (Constitution) at Del Mar July 19, was the distant runner-up to next-out GI Del Mar Debutante winner Bottle of Rouge (Vino Rosso) Aug. 9 and was stretching out as the second betting choice at 2-1 by about $1,000 to Misstrial (Constitution). In behind the leaders in the run to the clubhouse turn, the $400,000 KEESEP yearling was forced to...

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Breeding Digest: Mariah's Giant Legacy

Sponsored by Pedigrees360. How timely, that the first starting points for the 2026 Classics should be offered at Churchill even as the big spenders were driving each other to record heights up the road at Keeneland in their quest for a horse for 2027. Admittedly Saturday's initial rehearsals offered alternatives to those who cannot spend millions at the September Sale. One winner was out of a homebred Cowboy Cal mare, admittedly using a stallion who banked 12 seven-figure sales at Keeneland; while the other was a $20,000 discovery, inevitably by...

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Spice Runner at Churchill
Green but Good: Gun Runner's Spice Runner Gets Season's First Derby Points in Iroquois

Gun Runner, the Three Chimneys sensation whose yearlings topped the first four days of the ongoing Keeneland September sale, showed once again why he's in such demand as Spice Runner (c, 2, Gun Runner--Simple Surprise, by Cowboy Cal) captured the GIII Iroquois Stakes at Churchill Downs Saturday. The one-turn, one-mile Iroquois awards the first points of the 2025-26 season to the 2026 GI Kentucky Derby starting gate on a 10-5-3-2-1 scale. Comport (Collected), who had finished in front of Spice Runner in their two previous meetings, was second, while maiden...

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Gunite Full-Brother Spice Runner Validates Short-Priced Favoritism on Debut

2nd-Churchill Downs, $114,600, Msw, 5-23, 2yo, 5f, :58.36, ft, 2 1/4 lengths. SPICE RUNNER (c, 2, Gun Runner--Simple Surprise {SW, $185,446}, by Cowboy Cal), a full-brother to Gunite, MGISW-USA, G1SP-UAE, GSP-KSA, $2,493,009, validated 1-4 favoritism with a comfortable debut success Friday afternoon. Drawn widest in a field scratched down from eight to just five juvenile colts, the homebred jumped away very sharply and it appeared that the colt could have made the running if his jockey chose to do so, but instead Jose Ortiz elected to take a hold of...

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Friday Insights: Gunite Full-Brother Unveiled at Churchill

2nd-CD, $120k, Msw, 2yo, 5f, post time: 1:14 p.m. ET Winchell Thoroughbreds' SPICE RUNNER (Gun Runner) drew outside in a field of eight and is the 5-2 morning line second favorite to try to snap an unusually cool beginning to the local meeting for the Steve Asmussen barn. A March foal, the homebred is the latest to make the races out of Simple Surprise (Cowboy Cal), who won her maiden at first asking over a sloppy Churchill main track for coming up on 10 years ago for these same connections....

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Gunite Represented By First Foal

The first foal sired by Ashford Stud's Gunite (Gun Runner) was born Thursday, Jan. 9. Owned by Phoenix Farm and Racing and Todd Frederick, the colt the third produce from his dam Sweet Meadow Mist (D'Funnybone), a half-sister to the stakes-winning and Grade III-placed Bachata (Kingmambo), whose daughter Gold Medal Dancer (Medaglia d'Oro) was named a 'TDN Rising Star' before going on to win the GII Azeri Stakes while placing in the GI Apple Blossom Handicap and GI La Troienne Stakes for Josephine Abercrombie's Pin Oak Stud. Gold Medal Dancer...

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