Kentucky Derby pedigree profile: Disruptor

Disruptor

Colt by Gun Runner – Margate Gardens, by Speightstown

Bred in Kentucky by Runnymede Farm and Peter J. Callahan ($1.15 million Keeneland September yearling purchase by Repole Stable and Spendthrift Farm)

Champion Gun Runner ended his career in the month of January at Gulfstream Park, soaring to victory in the 2018 Pegasus World Cup. A few weeks later, he started his smashing stud career.

His son Disruptor began his career in January at Gulfstream Park, and now makes his third career start at the track in Saturday’s Florida Derby. A seven-figure yearling purchase by Repole Stable and Spendthrift Farm, which now race him in a large partnership, he is looking to give Repole and trainer Todd Pletcher a third straight win in the Florida Derby.

Gun Runner won six career Grade 1 races, including the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Classic, and earned Horse of the Year honors. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year.

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Gun Runner began his stud career by setting an earnings record for a freshman sire and is now among the leading general sires, finishing a strong second on the list last year. Generally, he has passed his stamina to his offspring, as seen with 2024 Eclipse Award champion Sierra Leone, a close third in the Kentucky Derby and winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and 2022 Preakness Stakes winner Early Voting.

Gun Runner’s 10 career Grade 1 winners include Cyberknife and Taiba, both major Derby prep winners; Locked, impressive winner of this year’s Santa Anita Handicap; champion Echo Zulu and Society, Grade 1 winners around both one and two turns; and the sprinters Gun Pilot, Gunite, and Vahva.

Florida-bred Margate Gardens is the dam of three winners from six starters. In addition to Disruptor, she is the dam of Wilson Q, a speedy juvenile who was second in the Bashford Manor, and Emily’s Oasis, a winner at a mile. Out of Ellesmere, who was stakes-placed at 1 1/16 miles on turf, Margate Gardens is a full sister to the crack turf sprinter Bridgetown. She is also a half-sister to three other stakes winners – Clement Rock, who took the Toronto Cup at 1 1/8 miles on turf; Carnacks Choice, who set a track record sprinting in the Lafayette on the Keeneland Polytrack; and Notary, a stakes winner at 1 1/16 miles on dirt at Hawthorne.

Margate Gardens’s granddam, Empress Aly, is a full sister to 1991 Kentucky Derby winner Strike the Gold.

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