Perennial leading sire Candy Ride was no slouch in 2025 as he continues to produce quality. The Lane’s End stallion, who turns 27 this year, finished 10th among North American leading general sires by earnings, with five stakes winners led by Dubai World Cup hero Hit Show. But Candy Ride’s influence has shifted to his sons at stud picking up the torch. On various 2025 sire lists, he is represented by a number of top 10 finishers. General sires: Horse of the Year and Hall of Famer Gun Runner (Three Chimneys Farm) finished third, continuing to establish himself as a perennial leading sire. Twirling Candy (Lane’s End) finished fourth. A younger son of Candy Ride, Vekoma (Spendthrift Farm), was 14th. Juvenile sires: Gun Runner, sire of Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner Super Corredora, finished third. Twirling Candy finished sixth and Vekoma ninth. Freshman sires: Rock Your World (Spendthrift) finished fourth, led in the continental U.S. by Grade 3 winner Taken by the Wind. Second-crop sires: Vekoma, who was 2024’s leading freshman sire, continued to dominate his class on this list, with seven graded stakes winners. Two others from the sireline finished in the top 20. Candy Ride’s champion son Game Winner (Lane’s End, sold to stand in Brazil) was 16th, and Twirling Candy’s son Gift Box (Lane’s End, sold to stand in Saudi Arabia) was 19th. Turf sires: Twirling Candy was a narrow second to Not This Time, who had historic accomplishments in 2025. A number of Candy Ride’s sons also had strong results regionally in 2025. California: Clubhouse Ride (Legacy Ranch) is a perennial presence among the state’s leading sires. That continued this past season. Among living and active California stallions with state-sired progeny of racing age, he checks in fourth on the general sire list. Florida: Valiant Minister (Bridlewood Farm) is the sire of Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner and Eclipse Award finalist Bentornato. Fueled by this, he checks in fifth on the state’s sire list, with far fewer starters than anyone above him. Louisiana: Unified (LACER stallion complex) moved to the state for the 2024 season, meaning his first Louisiana-conceived foals will not race until 2027. He is the state’s leading general sire regardless of progeny conception area, led by Kentucky-bred Idratherbeblessed, a Grade 2 winner at Fair Grounds. Candy Ride “had a lot of speed, he had a lot of class, and when you bring a little bit of stamina in with speed and class, you get what we’re looking for here in the stallion barn,” Lane’s End farm manager Peter Sheehan said. “Candy Ride passes that on to his offspring. We’re very lucky to have a stallion of his importance to the breed here at Lane’s End. He’s probably the best sire of sires of the last number of years.” Argentinian-born Candy Ride won all six of his starts. He was a champion miler in his home country before winning multiple graded stakes in the U.S., including the 2003 Pacific Classic in track-record time. He is the sire of Eclipse Award champions Gun Runner, Shared Belief, and Game Winner, as well as Canadian classic winner and champion Desert Ride. He has finished among the nation’s top 10 general sires six times. That includes 2017, in which he was the nation’s leading living sire, finishing second by earnings only to Unbridled’s Song, who died in 2013. That was the year that Unbridled’s Song’s son Arrogate began the season winning the rich Pegasus World Cup and Dubai World Cup, but Gun Runner came on to be Horse of the Year. Candy Ride sired 95 individual winners from 195 runners in 2025, led by a pair of stalwarts. Hit Show, already a five-time graded stakes winner, scored a signature victory in the Dubai World Cup. He went on to win two more stakes on the season, including a repeat victory in the Grade 3 Fayette. Millionaire Candied, a Grade 1 winner at 2 and multiple Grade 1-placed at 3 – including a third in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff – won the Allaire duPont Distaff and was third in two graded stakes. “The intangibles, that’s what you get with Candy Ride,” Sheehan said. “He passes on class, he passes on balance, he passes on that heart and determination that just produces great racehorses, and in turn produces great stallions.” Gun Runner is, without a doubt, Candy Ride’s best heir. The champion set an earnings record for a North American freshman sire in 2021 with his first crop, led by Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner and Eclipse Award champion Echo Zulu. While some leading freshmen take a dip in their statistics before reclimbing the general sire ranks due to natural shifts of support among new and developing stallions, Gun Runner has finished among the leading general sires every year since – checking in sixth in 2022, third in 2023, second in 2024, and third in 2025. Gun Runner’s 22 individual stakes winners last year were again led by Sierra Leone, the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner and divisional champion who was a Grade 1 winner in 2025, finished second in the Classic, and is again a divisional Eclipse Awards finalist. Gun Runner is also the sire of Grade 1 winners Brant and Super Corredora, both divisional Eclipse finalists. He has 12 Grade 1 winners overall in his brief career, including a classic winner in 2022 Preakness winner Early Voting. Gun Runner tied for second in the nation with four individual Grade 1 winners – the group also includes Santa Anita Handicap winner Locked – and his quality also showed up in Daily Racing Form’s Beyer Sire Performance Standings. He recorded a list-leading 19 triple-digit Beyers from 10 individual horses, compared to 16 for Into Mischief from 11 individuals. Gun Runner’s strong position on the 2-year-old list is exciting, with Juvenile Fillies winner Super Corredora and Juvenile third-place finisher Brant joined by graded stakes winners Further Ado, Paladin, and Spice Runner, all of whom are eyeing big 3-year-old campaigns. Sales results suggest that Gun Runner’s rising crop of 2-year-olds could be strong as well. He combined with Into Mischief to sire all of the lots sold for $2 million or more at the boutique Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale. He then sired the top two prices at the Keeneland September yearling sale, colts who sold for $3.3 million and $2.2 million, respectively, and led the sale by average price at a staggering $877,125. “He is a force of nature,” said David Fiske, manager for Winchell Thoroughbreds, which co-campaigned Gun Runner with Three Chimneys and maintains support of him as a stallion. “I don’t know what else to call him, really. . . . And the sales results are just mind-boggling. He’s just an amazing animal.” Twirling Candy, who stands alongside Candy Ride at Lane’s End, continues to be a versatile standout. He has now placed among the nation’s top 10 turf sires seven consecutive years, including in 2024, when he led that category and worked his way into sixth on the general sires list. In 2025, he was second on the turf list and fourth among general sires, led by Grade 1 turf winners Ag Bullet, who took the Jaipur over males, and Fionn, who defeated Eclipse finalist Nitrogen in the Belmont Oaks. Twirling Candy also sired Kilwin, winner of the Grade 1 Test Stakes on dirt. His dozen career Grade 1 winners also include 2021 Preakness Stakes winner Rombauer. Vekoma was 2024’s leading freshman sire, and then was the smashing leader of the second-crop sire list by both earnings and stakes performers, with seven individual graded/group winners on the season. There is plenty in the pipeline for Candy Ride’s sireline, with the patriarch represented by a new son at stud in graded stakes winner Confidence Game (Hidden Lake Farm) in New York. Gun Runner will have his first sons with runners this year in Cyberknife (Spendthrift) and Early Voting (Taylor Made Farm). Both were popular with their first yearlings. Preakness winner Early Voting averaged $122,173 from 75 sold, against an introductory stud fee of $25,000, when he spent one season at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud. Cyberknife, Grade 1 winner of the Arkansas Derby and Haskell, averaged $87,218 from 117 sold, against an introductory fee of $30,000. Gun Runner’s next in line are Grade 1 winners Gunite (Ashford) and Taiba (Spendthrift) and Grade 2 winner Pappacap (Walmac Farm) with their first yearlings this year; Grade 1 winner Gun Pilot (Three Chimneys) with his first crop arriving this year; and champion Sierra Leone (Ashford), Grade 1 winner Locked (Gainesway), and graded stakes winners Disarm (Hidden Lake), Il Miracolo (Crestwood Farm), and Red Run (Milky Way Farm) all entering stud this year. Twirling Candy has a handful of sons at stud, and two of the best will be represented on the track and in the sale rings soon. Grade 1 winner Pinehurst (Walmac Farm) will have his first runners in 2026, while Preakness winner Rombauer (War Horse Place) has his first yearlings.