Breeders' Cup heavy with Gun Runner offspring

Gun Runner set the earnings record for a North American freshman sire in 2021, with his first Breeders’ Cup winner that season. He was the busiest stallion in North America in 2022, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred.

Gun Runner, the 2017 Horse of the Year, is now loaded for the upcoming Breeders’ Cup.

Gun Runner raced for Winchell Thoroughbreds and Three Chimneys Farm, where he stands in Kentucky. He led the overall juvenile sire list last year with a crop led by Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner and Eclipse Award champion Echo Zulu. That filly is expected to contest the upcoming Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint. Gun Runner’s cast of pre-entrants at the Breeders’ Cup also includes Cyberknife (Classic or Dirt Mile), Taiba (Classic), Gunite (Dirt Mile or Sprint), Society (Distaff), Wicked Halo (Filly and Mare Sprint), and Grand Love (Juvenile Fillies). Gun Runner is also the sire of this year’s since-retired Preakness Stakes winner Early Voting.

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“What he stamps in his offspring is just phenomenal,” said Ron Winchell of Winchell Thoroughbreds. “That’s the only way I can put it. Their mind and everything is just so perfect for racing.”

Off his 2021 success, Gun Runner covered a reported 248 mares in 2022. That included the dams of Early Voting and Cyberknife; the dams of Triple Crown winners American Pharoah and Justify; and newly minted Hall of Famer Beholder.

Also this year, Gun Runner was bred to Kentucky Oaks and Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner and Eclipse champion Untapable; Eclipse champions Groupie Doll and Take Charge Brandi; Kentucky Oaks winner Cathryn Sophia; Distaff winner Stopchargingmaria; Grade 1 winners Acoma, Chasing Yesterday, Coffee Clique, Dance Card, Dickinson, Dream Dancing, Dream Tree, Harmonize, Oleksandra, Pure Clan, Restless Rider, Sailor’s Valentine, and Together; the dams of Eclipse champions Midnight Bisou, Monomoy Girl, and Vino Rosso; and the dams of Grade 1 winners Annapolis, Art Collector, Bodemeister, Catholic Boy, Collected, Eskimo Kisses, Guarana, and Hootenanny.

Grade 1 winner Yaupon, who stood his first season at Spendthrift Farm in 2022, covered 242 mares this year to check in second behind Gun Runner on the Report of Mares Bred.

The Jockey Club reports that 925 stallions covered 27,163 mares in North America during 2022, according to reports received through Oct. 18. At the time of this report last year, 1,016 stallions were reported to have covered 27,829 mares.

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