Gun Runner follows footsteps of fellow Winchell-raced sire Tapit

North America’s leading sires are a diverse cast. The 10 earnings leaders on the general sires list for 2022 represent eight different farms, with stud fees ranging from $10,000 to $250,000. They range in age from 9 to 25, and in accomplishment from champion juveniles to horses unraced at 2 who became champions as older horses. Their progeny have had success on a variety of surfaces and in major events around the globe.

Two stallions on this list share something very important in common, though.

Perennial leading sire Tapit is the sire of 2022 Horse of the Year Flightline. He finished seventh on the earnings list, edged out for sixth by 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner, a white-hot young success and the year’s leading second-crop sire. The two stallions, standing at Gainesway and Three Chimneys, respectively, both raced in the colors of Winchell Thoroughbreds, which has played a major role in their success.

“Tapit was the best sire of the first quarter of the century, and Gun Runner might be the best one of the next quarter century,” David Fiske, racing manager and bloodstock adviser to the Winchell operation, has previously said.

Winchell Thoroughbreds – led by Ron Winchell since the death of his late father, Verne, in 2002 – maintained a 50 percent interest in Grade 1 winner Tapit when he retired to stud at Gainesway for the 2005 season. It soon become obvious that the young stallion was something special, as he sired 2008 Eclipse Award champion Stardom Bound in his first crop and established a North American earnings record for a freshman sire, with $2,811,337 in earnings. The great Danzig is credited as the first freshman whose progeny earnings surpassed $2 million, in 1984.

Tapit then climbed the general sire list, claiming the first of his three nation-leading titles in 2014, when he broke Smart Strike’s North American single-season earnings record. Tapit broke his own mark in 2015 and 2016 to make it three straight titles; his record was broken by current leading sire Into Mischief.

Tapit reigns as North America’s leading sire by lifetime progeny earnings, with $195,371,532 through Jan. 18, according to Equineline statistics. He is the sire of 101 graded/group stakes winners, and ranks as a leader in some of North America’s biggest events. He is the most successful sire in the modern history of the Belmont Stakes, with winners Tonalist (2014), Creator (2016), Tapwrit (2017), and Essential Quality (2021), matching the great Lexington, who had four winners in the post-Civil War era. Tapit is also tied with Into Mischief and the late More Than Ready for most Breeders’ Cup wins all-time, with Flightline’s Classic win making it seven each. He is second to the late Galileo by purses earned at the event.

Flightline became the sixth individual Eclipse Award winner for Tapit, now 22, when he was named Horse of the Year and outstanding older dirt male in January. He joined Stardom Bound, Hansen, Untapable, Unique Bella, and Essential Quality.

“Especially as [Tapit is] older in age, to get what looks like the best of the Tapits at this age is great,” Winchell said.

Untapable, who won the 2014 Kentucky Oaks and Breeders’ Cup Distaff among eight graded stakes wins, raced as a homebred for the Winchell operation, which strongly supported Tapit at stud to build his reputation. Also carrying the Winchell colors as homebreds have been 2012 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Tapizar and five-time graded stakes-winning millionaire Tapiture.

The Tapit mares in the arsenal are now helping Gun Runner, whom Winchell campaigned in partnership with Goncalo Torrealba’s Three Chimneys Farm. Now standing at Three Chimneys, Gun Runner has sired 10 winners from 16 starters out of Tapit mares through Jan. 18, led by Peter Blum’s Grade 1-winning homebred Society. The Winchells have bred and raced horses by Gun Runner out of Tapit mares that include multiple graded stakes winner Wicked Halo, stakes winner Red Run, Grade 1-placed Red Route One, and stakes-placed Echo Again and Costa Terra.

Gun Runner got off to a powerhouse start in his stud career. He not only set a freshman earnings record in 2021 with $4,315,980 in earnings – breaking the mark held by Tapit and then surpassed by Uncle Mo – he was the nation’s overall leading 2-year-old sire, outgunning Into Mischief. He continued on strongly this year to immediately make an impact on the general sire list. Not only did Gun Runner’s two juvenile Grade 1 winners of 2021 – champion Echo Zulu and Gunite – return to win graded stakes as 3-year-olds, he also had Preakness Stakes winner Early Voting and multiple Grade 1 winners Cyberknife and Taiba emerge as late-bloomers. Overall, he is the sire of 17 stakes winners, 10 graded, through Jan. 18.

“There’s nothing you can say about Gun Runner,” Winchell said. “He’s like in a whole different atmosphere, different world. . . . What he stamps in his offspring is just phenomenal. That’s the only way I can put it. Their mind and everything is just so perfect for racing.”

The successful cross of Gun Runner and Tapit could benefit the latest high-profile Winchell runner to enter stud. Grade 1 winner and Eclipse Award champion Epicenter retires to Coolmore’s Ashford Stud for 2023 after recovering from a career-ending injury sustained in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Epicenter is by the Giant’s Causeway horse Not This Time and out of a Candy Ride mare. That makes him bred on the reverse cross of Gun Runner, by Candy Ride and out of a Giant’s Causeway mare – and means the same Tapit mares could cross well with Epicenter. Indeed, Fiske has already confirmed that graded stakes winner Just Wicked, the dam of Wicked Halo, will be among the first mares in his book.

There will be no want of good mares for the kings of the operation, two of the most in-demand stallions in North America. Gun Runner led North American stallions in 2022 by covering 248 mares, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred. Those were led by the dams of Early Voting and Cyberknife; the dams of Triple Crown winners American Pharoah and Justify; newly minted Hall of Famer Beholder; and Untapable.

Also in 2022, Gun Runner was bred to Eclipse champions Groupie Doll and Take Charge Brandi; Kentucky Oaks winner Cathryn Sophia; BC 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.

Meanwhile, Tapit is continuing to build his dynasty, with some of his better young sons just coming to stud, including Essential Quality, whose first foals are arriving now, and Flightline, the most anticipated new stallion of this season. The dams of both star runners were bred back to Tapit in 2022.

Tapit’s book last season also included champion Midnight Bisou; Grade 1 winners Elate, Hard Not to Love, and Rosalind; the dams of champions Accelerate and Hansen; and the dams of Grade 1 winners Miss Temple City, Practical Joke, Spun to Run, and Zandon.