Gun Runner starts sales career with a bang

Horse of the Year Gun Runner was, in racing parlance, a “Saturday afternoon horse,” competing in many of the sport’s high-level events with distinction. Bloodstock agent Mike Ryan sees the potential for the same in the young Three Chimneys stallion’s first offspring. Ryan gave Gun Runner the distinction of having the most expensive weanling at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall selected mixed sale when he signed the sale ticket for a $750,000 filly out of multiple Grade 1 winner Love and Pride from the stallion’s first crop.

“She’s a big, scopey filly who looks like she could get a mile and an eighth,” Ryan said. “She could be anything. She could be a Saturday afternoon horse.”

Gun Runner, by Candy Ride, won 12 of 19 starts for earnings of more than $15.9 million, with six Grade 1 victories highlighted by the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Classic and 2018 Pegasus World Cup. He finished second or third in four more Grade 1/Group 1 events, including runner-up efforts in the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and 2017 Dubai World Cup, and a third in the 2016 Kentucky Derby.

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Gun Runner’s category-topping filly was one of two weanlings by him sold at Fasig-Tipton, with the other being a $235,000 colt. He had five weanlings sell for an average price of $284,000 in Keeneland November’s Book 1 portion, led by a $475,000 filly out of Grade 1 winner and stakes producer Pure Clan, who sold to Ven Gen LLC.

“They’re bigger than I thought they were going to be, to be honest,” Ryan said of Gun Runner’s offspring. “He looks magnificent, but the thing that impressed me about him was the way he moved on the racetrack. He looked like a cheetah – his feet barely touched the ground. But his breeding, I think there’s some [broodmare sire] Giant’s Causeway coming through there – [his weanlings] have size and scope and bone and substance. I’m liking what I’m seeing.

“He was as good a runner as we’ve seen in recent years. He turned out to be a hell of an older horse. I wish people would keep more 3-year-olds in training as older horses.”