The late City Zip, who died earlier this year, was seriously underrated – both as a racehorse and a sire – throughout most of his life. The older half-brother to champion Ghostzapper, City Zip won the Grade 1 Hopeful and three other stakes at 2 and the Grade 2 Amsterdam and three other stakes at 3, but, despite that sterling record, began his stud career in New York instead of Kentucky. That was likely because his sire, the similarly underrated Carson City, was not considered to be a sire of sires and the fact that City Zip turned out rather markedly in front. Ghostzapper’s emergence as Horse of the Year in 2004 prompted an early move to Kentucky before his first foals had raced, and City Zip went from strength to strength with the better mares available in the Bluegrass, siring champions Dayatthespa, Catch a Glimpse, Work All Week, and Finest City, all Breeders’ Cup winners as well. City Zip has had little opportunity to develop as a sire of sires, but his early son Run Away and Hide has done remarkably well with very limited opportunities. Run Away and Hide has averaged less than 50 foals a crop through his first six years at stud, but his juvenile son Run Away, easy winner of the Grade 2 Best Pal Stakes at Del Mar last Saturday, may be good enough to change breeders’ perceptions. Bred in Kentucky by Ron Kirk, Joint Ventures, and Michael Riordan, Run Away and Hide failed to meet his very modest reserve at the 2007 Keeneland September yearling sale, hammered down at an RNA price of $22,000. He made his first start for Kirk, Riordan, and John C. Bates and trainer Ronny Werner at Keeneland the following April, running away with a 4 1/2-furlong maiden race by more than three lengths. The City Zip colt followed that up with an equally impressive win in the Grade 3 Kentucky Stakes at Churchill Downs the following month, beating Garden District by 2 1/2 lengths. Three months later, Run Away and Hide won the Grade 2 Saratoga Special, a race his sire also won, beating Break Water Edison and future Group 1 winner Reynaldothewizard. Run Away and Hide set a new stakes record of 1:15.67 for the 6 1/2 furlongs of the Special, but that proved to be his last start, and he retired to Darby Dan Farm at a $7,500 fee in 2009. :: DRF BREEDING LIVE: Real-time coverage of breeding and sales As stallion books have expanded, it has become increasingly difficult for inexpensive stallions to attract large books in Kentucky, but Run Away and Hide has made the best of a bad situation, siring dual Canadian champion Are You Kidding Me (out of Sweet Awakening, by Street Cry), Grade 3 winner Heavens Runway (Heavens Passport, by Awesome Again), Grade 3 winner Mico Margarita (Wide Range, by Mineshaft) and two other stakes winners from his first crop of 57 foals. Alberts Hope (Accepting Fate, by Saint Ballado), winner of the 2013 Best Pal, was the best of the three stakes winners in Run Away and Hide’s second crop, and Run Away is the second graded winner from Run Away and Hide’s sixth crop, following Grade 3 Bashford Manor winner Ten City (Maiden American, by Rock Hard Ten). Bred in Kentucky by Erv Woolsey and Ralph Kinder, Run Away was listed as RNA at $9,500 at the 2015 Keeneland November sale, but sold for $35,000 to Waves Bloodstock at the 2016 OBS August yearling sale. Pinhooked to the 2017 Barretts March sale of selected 2-year-olds in training sale by Ciaran Dunne’s Wavertree Stables, he worked a furlong in 10 seconds flat and was purchased by Kaleem Shah for $325,000, joint sixth highest price of the sale. Run Away is the second foal and first winner out of Cabales, a Pulpit mare who scored her only win from 10 starts in a $13,000 claimer at Parx Racing. Cabales’s dam, minor stakes winner Mudslinger, by El Gran Senor, produced nothing of note, but is half-sister to another minor stakes winner in Hot Scramble, by Thunder Gulch. The family traces to the good Groton producer Sumatra, dam of Belmont winner and underrated sire Summing, by Verbatim, multiple graded winner One Sum, by One For All, dam of stakes winner Verbality, by Verbatim, the granddam of Grade 1 winner High Fly, by Atticus, and to graded winner Twosome and stakes winner Some for All, both by One for All. Cabales has since produced a yearling filly by Yes It’s True and a 2017 colt by Munnings. She was bred back to Run Away and Hide this year.