Gun Runner yearlings prized at Keeneland January

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The top price among newly turned yearlings at the Keeneland January sale was a $375,000 colt by Gun Runner, purchased by Narvick International to lead a strong sale for the young sire.

This is the third crop for Horse of the Year Gun Runner, who set a record for earnings by a North American freshman sire in 2021 and who also led the overall 2-year-old sire list. Gun Runner finished Keeneland January with five horses sold for an average of $201,000. That ranked him third among all sires with three or more lots sold, including sires of both young stock and broodmares.

“A lot of people are trying to get the good Gun Runners,” said Narvick’s Emmanuel de Seroux, who indicated that the colt would race in the United States for his client. “He is a very good mover. I liked him very much; he walked very well. He had very good presence about him and is a very classy horse.”

The Gun Runner colt’s placement in the January catalog was not originally planned.

“We had him here in November, and we had a little bit of a mishap with him down at the barn and we weren’t happy with the way he was moving so we sent him home,” Adrian Regan of consignor Hunter Valley Farm said. “We originally though we’d wait until the [fall] yearling sales, but Gun Runner obviously took off. At the time, we switched him straight over to January.”