Gun Runner offspring are locked and loaded for Breeders' Cup

Lexington, Ky.

If there is one topic that causes the connections of Gun Runner to arrive at a loss for words, it’s the challenge of trying to put the son of Candy Ride’s achievements into historical context.

Having established the earnings record for a first-crop sire last season, Gun Runner continues to live in his own stratosphere with runners that defy the fickle nature of the Thoroughbred industry. His first representation in the American Triple Crown races already yielded a classic winner in Preakness Stakes hero Early Voting. And when the Breeders’ Cup takes place at Keeneland on Nov. 4 and 5, the overflow of talent in his bloodlines will again be poised for a showcase against the industry’s best.

Included in the 205 pre-entries announced Wednesday for the 2022 Breeders’ Cup were eight offspring by the phenom that is Three Chimneys stallion Gun Runner. The 2017 horse of the year is set to be represented in five races with champion Echo Zulu and Wicked Halo in the Filly & Mare Sprint, Society in the Distaff, Echo Again in the Juvenile, Grand Love in the Juvenile Fillies, Cyberknife and Gunite in the Dirt Mile and Taiba in the $6 million Classic.

Cyberknife has second preference in the Classic, and Gunite has second preference in the Sprint.

Breeders’ Cup success is already part of Gun Runner’s exceptional narrative as the former Steve Asmussen trainee captured the 2017 Classic to cement his championship campaign. Fittingly, the chestnut stallion wasted zero time in joining the elite ranks of Breeders’ Cup victors to sire a Breeders’ Cup winner when Echo Zulu smashed her rivals in last year’s Juvenile Fillies en route to claiming divisional honors.

The multitude of Breeders’ Cup contenders Gun Runner boasts this season goes hand in hand with his meteoric rise in the breeding shed. He already has eight graded stakes winners, six of which are Grade 1 winners, in his first two crops of racing age and is currently sixth on the general sire list.

His more than $11.7 million in progeny earnings in 2022 is double that of Arrogate, the No. 2 on the second-crop sire list. As precocious as Gun Runner’s babies are, they have demonstrated they are more than capable of making the incremental progress needed to handle a stretch out in distance.

“I mean, there is nothing more you can say about Gun Runner. He is just in a whole different atmosphere, a different world,” said Ron Winchell of Winchell Thoroughbreds, which campaigned Gun Runner and shares ownership of him with Three Chimneys Farm. “I don’t even know how to put it into words. What he stamps in his offspring is just phenomenal, that’s the only way I can put it. Their mind and everything is just so perfect for racing.”

In addition to having leading 3-year-old Epicenter for the Classic, Winchell Thoroughbreds owns three of the Gun Runner’s potential Breeders’ Cup runners in Wicked Halo, Echo Zulu - whom they campaign in partnership with L & N Racing - and homebred Gunite. If there is commonality that can be pointed to in his best runners, it is the fact they are undaunted in the heat of battle.

“They just don’t stop. The mantra from Steve last year when talking to jockeys was, ‘Just don’t give up on them, keep going,’” said David Fiske, longtime manager for Winchell Thoroughbreds. “They run through the wire and look like they want to go further. They’re just an impressive bunch.”