Saturday Sires: Munnings

Nearly two years ago, just prior to the 2023 breeding season, Ashford Stud's Robyn Murray spoke about Munnings on camera. At the time, she said: “Theoretically the best is still yet to come and we're so excited for him… We would expect all of this to elevate him over the next couple years.”

As the horses conceived that season, the year Munnings stood for $100,000, are currently just weanlings, her words seem prescient given the results of last weekend, when undefeated 2-year-olds by the Ashford Stud sire swept both divisions of the juvenile graded stakes at Aqueduct.

It's also easy to understand why Adrian Mansergh-Wallace, who has watched the stallion's rise from the early days and has been with Coolmore for more than two decades, speaks of Munnings with a palpable pride etching his voice.

“As a stallion he has done it the hard way. He's a horse that's really a rags to riches story in that he started at $12,500 and graded down from there until his first runners hit, but now he's one of those horses that's in the same bracket as your Twirling Candys and ever-reliable stallions.

“He has hopefully got two really good prospects, maybe even three or four, for the Classics, so last weekend getting those two Grade II winners up in New York was fantastic. He's a horse we're obviously immensely proud of.”

A striking individual, as evidenced by his $1.7-million pricetag at the 2008 Fasig-Tipton Florida Select 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale, Munnings was bred in Kentucky by Dan Tayloe and Glencrest Farm. A member of the first crop of champion sprinter Speightstown, he sent tongues wagging early with a spectacular breeze at the sale, officially working a furlong in :10 but galloping out in a reported :33 or :33 1/5, depending on the watch.

Named a 'TDN Rising Star' on debut, Munnings placed in the GI Hopeful Stakes and GI Champagne Stakes at two before reeling off a trio of Grade II events and four more Grade I placings at three and four as a Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor, and Derrick Smith colorbearer. From the wonderful and prolific Lady Winborne (Secretariat) family, he was retired to Ashford for the 2011 season. Munnings has made the most of the years since.

“When you look back at what he sold for as a 2-year-old and how he breezed at Fasig-Tipton, you see he had tremendous ability on the track and was very, very fast,” said Mansergh-Wallace. “But he's the sire now of six Grade I winners and numerous Grade II winners around the world. Coming off the weekend he just had, he's an old stalwart of the game.

“He's a wonderful servant for Ashford. He's just a very reliable stallion, even though he's now about to be 19, in terms of producing racehorses and sales horses.”

Sire of 81 black-type winners to date from his 11 crops to race, Munnings ranks among the top 10 North American-based sires in 2024 on both the general list and the 2-year-old list. Year in and year out, the number of stakes winners among his tally is consistently amongst the assemblage of top sires in the nation. While the chestnut's 2024 runners include GI Aristocrat Franklin-Simpson Stakes winner Howard Wolowitz, Mansergh-Wallace said the results of last weekend were easily the highlight of Munnings's year. Both 'TDN Rising Stars', Godolphin's Poster won the GII Remsen Stakes and Shadwell Stable's Muhimma captured the GII Demoiselle Stakes. Both are three-for-three in their young careers.

“I think any breeder or any fan of racing is always looking toward the next generation and the next big thing,” Mansergh-Wallace said. “You've got an undefeated colt and an undefeated filly for such powerhouses and great supporters of ours as Shadwell and Godolphin. Both out of Tapit mares, both impeccably well bred.”

And that leads us to the incredible statistic Chris McGrath covered in this week's Breeding Digest: both of the Munnings graded winners over the weekend were out of daughters of Tapit. They weren't the first of his runners on the cross.

“Even going back to [MGSW & GISP] Finite and [MGSW & MGISP] Bonny South, who were great fillies for Juddmonte–again out of Tapit mares–certainly we're trying to push on to any breeder who has a young A.P. Indy-line mare that we think this is a nick well worth exploring. It's four Grade II winners now bred on the cross with Tapit mares.”

Of the 30 graded winners by Munnings, six–or 20%!–are on that A.P. Indy cross. A total of 14 of his 81 stakes winners (17%) are also bred on the same cross.

'TDN Rising Star' Muhimma stays unbeaten in Saturday's Demoiselle | Sarah Andrew

Another curiosity is that trainer Brad Cox has had a number of the really good ones, ranging from the aforementioned Muhimma and Bonny South to other graded winners the likes of Warrior's Charge and Zozos.

“I would imagine he's got a soft spot for the horse,” mused Mansergh-Wallace. “Of course, generally the best breeders and owners in the business tend to gravitate toward the best trainers in the business. One thing feeds the next. I do think Brad Cox has been a massive factor in Munnings's success, but so has Chad Brown in producing a horse like Jack Christopher.”

'TDN Rising Star' Jack Christopher, winner of the GI Champagne at two and the GI H. Allen Jerkens Memorial Stakes and GI Woody Stephens Stakes at three, entered stud in 2023 alongside his sire at Ashford. He's standing his third season in 2025 for $25,000.

“Jack Christopher is without doubt Munnings's best son,” said Mansergh-Wallace. “We're enormously proud to stand a horse like Jack Christopher We were very impressed with his first foals at the sales. He had great support in his first two years at stud and will continue that in his third year at stud.

“If you like Munnings, then at a third of the price, you've got to really like Jack Christopher, who in all fairness was a better racehorse in terms of his credentials. A three-time Grade I winner in three iconic races, he is everything you want in a stallion. He's very, very good looking. He looks exactly like his sire, a carbon copy.”

Like so many stallions, Munnings's fee varies annually according to racetrack and sales results. He stood for $75,000 in 2024, when he covered a book of 148 mares, and has been slated to stand for $65,000 in 2025. Mansergh-Wallace said his book will remain at about the same number.

“We're mindful of his age, but he's very healthy and very well, exceptionally fertile. You'd imagine he's a horse that instead of tapering off towards the end of his career, he'll be seen to better effect as his career goes on and really now as he's approaching 19. You sometimes think with these older stallions maybe that you're arriving too late, but with a horse like him maybe now is the time to support him because his fee is slightly down but he's still very, very popular.

“You couldn't imagine a horse more current than him. On the back of last weekend, I'd say we sold 50 nominations this week in him. You can advertise all you want, but the best results are what happens on the racetrack. That's the best advertisement for any stallion. He's a horse that really has never let us down in that respect.”

Munnings | Coolmore

Mansergh-Wallace also said Munnings has some extremely well-bred young horses in the pipeline.

“I think the fact of the matter is that he's receiving now and has done for the last five or six years support from some of the best breeders in the business. He's receiving support from Juddmonte, Godolphin, Shadwell, Stonestreet, and, of course, Nathan McCauley, who bred Eda out of the Lemon Drop Kid mare Show Me.”

Eda, winner of the 2021 GI Starlet Stakes and five other black-type events, sold at last month's Fasig-Tipton November sale for $2,550,000 to AMO Racing USA.

“Nathan McCauley was one of the first people who ever supported the horse to a big extent,” said Mansergh-Wallace. “He bred mares to him from the very beginning. He's actually booked in five mares this year to him just the other day. And Godolphin, Shadwell, Stonestreet, they're all back on board for 2025 as well.”

With 14 'Rising Stars' under his belt and his best-bred crops ahead, it's not hard to be excited by what Munnings may yet do. His top-selling yearlings this year were a $975,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga colt who went to Donato Lanni as agent for SF Racing, Starlight Racing, and Madaket Stables and a $700,000 Keeneland September filly purchased by agent Steve Young. Out of mares by Bernardini and Tapit, both are bred on the A.P. Indy cross.

While that nick catches the eye, Munnings is anything but a “one-trick pony.” His Grade I winners are out of daughters of Cozzene, Half Ours, Lemon Drop Kid, Lost Soldier, Out of Place, and Uncle Mo. Like so many of the top sires, he may show an affinity now and then, but he's more than capable with a variety of broodmare sire lines.

“He's just a very, very versatile sire,” said Mansergh-Wallace. “He gets horses that are good 2-year-olds. They're precocious and they're fast. He's probably as good a stallion–in terms of value–as there is out there.”