Historic Runnymede Farm will be hoping for more Mage magic in its Keeneland September yearling consignment this month. The Paris, Ky., nursery, which has been in operation for 156 years, foaled, raised, and sold this year’s Kentucky Derby winner. After kicking off this yearling sale season in strong fashion at Fasig-Tipton in Saratoga, Runnymede now brings the bulk of its yearling crop to Keeneland September – including a half-brother to Mage. “It’s obviously quite an exciting time for the farm,” Runnymede president Romain Malhouitre said. “It’s been a special year for us. And it’s always exciting as you watch a new crop of yearlings coming together and you hope to showcase them in front of everyone.” Runnymede was founded in 1867 by Col. Ezekiel Clay, who purchased a plot of land formerly owned by Kentucky’s second governor, James Garrard. He named it Runnymede, for the location in England where the Magna Carta was signed. The farm is under the stewardship of Ezekiel Clay’s great-grandson Brutus J. Clay III, who serves as chairman and chief executive officer after taking over the reins from father, Catesby W. Clay, in 2009. Malhouitre joined the farm in 2013. Runners bred or raised by Runnymede have played a major role in American racing history, including the Hall of Famer, 1887 Belmont winner, and prominent sire Hanover. Other noteworthy Runnymede horses include 1896 Kentucky Derby winner and Hall of Famer Ben Brush, fellow Hall of Famers Miss Woodford and Roamer, Derby winners Agile (1905) and Count Turf (1951), Preakness winner Buddhist (1889), Belmont winner Sir Dixon (1888), and 1973 Wood Memorial winner Angle Light, who famously upset Secretariat and Sham. In more recent years, Runnymede-bred runners have been led by the spirited and popular Eclipse Award champion Lady Eli, who returned from a battle with laminitis to win three additional Grade 1s. Other standouts turned out by the farm recently have included Royal Ascot winner Undrafted, Metropolitan Handicap winner Divine Park, Pacific Classic winner Collected, and additional Grade 1/Group 1 winners Agnes Digital, Awesome Gem, Jaycito, Marylebone, and Palace Episode. Now, some additional big names have emerged from Runnymede’s fields thanks to its association with the Grandview Equine of Three Chimneys Farm founder Robert Clay – who is from a different branch of the Clay family. After selling Three Chimneys in 2013, Clay launched his Grandview Equine investment portfolio, and, while diversifying that lineup, bought some shares in the champion juvenile Good Magic. When that colt was slated to retire to Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm for the 2019 season, he set out to acquire mares to support the stallion. Those mares included Puca, who he purchased for $475,000 out of the 2018 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall selected mixed sale. The Big Brown mare, a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Finnegans Wake, won 4 of 17 starts, including the 2017 Steve Pini Memorial in 2017 at Suffolk Downs. She also was second in the Grade 2 Gazelle Stakes at Aqueduct. Puca, carrying her first foal, by Gun Runner, was sent to board at Runnymede. After delivering that filly, who would be named Gunning and retained by Grandview to race, she was bred to Good Magic in his first season and delivered Mage on April 18, 2020. Runnymede handled the colt through his formative months and brought him to the 2021 Keeneland September yearling sale. He brought $235,000 from the pinhooking group New Team. At the following spring’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale, Mage sold for $290,000 to OGMA Investments, a partnership helmed by trainer Gustavo Delgado’s son and assistant Gustavo Delgado Jr.; bloodstock agent Ramiro Restrepo; Sam Herzberg’s Sterling Racing; and Commonwealth, a sports investment app offering micro-shares in racehorses. Gunning, trained by Kenny McPeek, began to serve notice that the family could be special when she was third in the 2022 Audubon Oaks at Ellis Park. She finished second in the Dig A Diamond Stakes at Oaklawn Park one week before this year’s Kentucky Derby. “She’s worth a lot of money as a mare,” McPeek said. “We knew she was sitting on the cusp of some things, or at least the family was.” Mage finished second to Eclipse Award champion Forte in the Grade 1 Florida Derby to earn his spot in the Kentucky Derby. On the first Saturday in May, he ran down Two Phil’s for a one-length upset victory, becoming the fourth Kentucky Derby winner raised at Runnymede. “You never anticipate that something like that will come to pass,” Brutus Clay said. “It’s just a privilege to have the great clients like Grandview and Robert Clay and their partners. When it all comes together, it’s an unbelievable feeling.” As Mage built a summer campaign, Runnymede brought two yearlings to Fasig-Tipton Saratoga for its first consignment at the boutique sale since 2019. A colt from the first crop of McKinzie sold for $700,000 to CRK Stable, and a Constitution filly went for $425,000 to Winchell Thoroughbreds. Runnymede has 24 yearlings cataloged at Keeneland September, which represent the bulk of its offerings before it plans to sell a handful at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall sale in October. Undoubtedly garnering the most attention in the Keeneland consignment will be another colt from the first crop of multiple Grade 1 winner McKinzie out of Puca, making him a half-brother to Mage. The colt is in Book 2 during the first week of the sale, where he will be a standout. “He’s a May foal, he’s a very good horse,” Malhouitre said. “He’s a good balance between the sire and his dam.” While Mage, a compact, blaze-faced chestnut, resembles sire Good Magic, his full brother Dornoch – second in his Saratoga debut in July and then second in the Sapling Stakes at Monmouth for West Paces Racing, R.A. Hill Stable, Belmar Racing, and Two Eights Racing – is a leggy bay who looks more like Puca. “If you see Mage and his full brother, they are completely different individuals,” Malhouitre said. “Mage would be a little bit closer to his dad – way more compact, and way more like Good Magic is conformation-wise. [Puca’s other foals] are a bit bigger, bit scopier, and that’s what we saw with Dornoch, his full brother – he was a bigger, longer horse. That’s what I mean about the McKinzie [yearling]. He’s got a little bit of both. He’s got McKinzie’s power and balance, and the scope of his dam as well.” Runnymede’s two Book 1 offerings at Keeneland are an Uncle Mo half-brother to Grade 1-winning multimillionaire Collected, and a Curlin filly from the prolific female family of recent Grade 1 winners Preservationist and Olympiad. Scattered throughout the marathon sale, Runnymede’s other highlights include a Not This Time colt out of Lady Eli’s graded stakes-winning half-sister Bizzy Caroline; a Constitution filly out of Princesa Caroline, another half-sister to Lady Eli; a Speightstown full sister to graded stakes winner Bobby’s Wicked One; and an Uncle Mo colt out of a half-sister to champion Peeping Fawn, from the family of blue hen Better Than Honour. In addition to multiple offerings by McKinzie, the farm will bring forward yearlings by first-crop sires Authentic, Complexity, Improbable, and Tiz the Law. “We have a really strong consignment of horses,” Brutus Clay said. “It’s an exciting year, and it’s nice to have one big horse make you pretty relevant.”