Gun Pilot

Kentucky Value Sires For 2025–Part I: New Stallions

With 'TDN Rising Stars' Sierre Leone (Gun Runner) and Fierceness (City of Light) extending their rivalry into 2025, and the GI Kentucky Derby winner also persevering to a third campaign, there's no denying that the new intake of Bluegrass sires has a fairly bunched look. A cluster of second-tier names can duly compete for mares that might otherwise have favored one of the sophomore leaders, with eight of the 23 newcomers targeting broadly similar budgets between $40,000 and $30,000. Whether that qualifies any of them as "value" can only be...

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New Grade I-Winning Pair at Three Chimneys

With less than three weeks remaining for stallions to make their mark on the General Sires list this year, Into Mischief and Gun Runner have the 1-2 spots solidly secured for the leading North American sires by earnings. In 2025, Three Chimneys Farm will add two sons of those top sires to their roster as Newgate and Gun Pilot become the first stallions by both Into Mischief and the farm's own Gun Runner to stand at Three Chimneys. Gun Pilot, a homebred for Three Chimneys out of their unraced Smart...

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Three Chimneys Sets Fees For Gun Pilot At $17,500 And Newgate At $20,000

Three Chimneys has named the stud fees for the latest additions to their stallion roster in GISW Gun Pilot (Gun Runner), who will stand for $17,500 LFSN, and GISW Newgate (Into Mischief), who is set at $20,000 LFSN, according to a press release from the farm on Wednesday morning. A Three Chimneys homebred, Gun Pilot campaigned in the colors of owner Gonçalo Torrealba. Earlier this season, the 4-year-old captured the GI Churchill Downs Stakes, which made him one of 10 Grade I winners and 13 millionaires for his champion sire....

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Gun Runner To Stand For $250,000 In 2025

Three Chimneys has released its 2025 roster and fees and topping the list is Horse of the Year Gun Runner (by Candy Ride {Arg})--the sire of 13 millionaires and 10 Grade 1 winners--who after being listed privately in 2024 will stand for a fee of $250,000 LFSN, the farm said via a release on Friday. Currently second on the General Sire list in North America with almost $16 million in progeny earnings, Gun Runner is the sire of four Grade I winners this year including Sierra Leone, Vahva, Society and...

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GISW Gun Pilot To Take Up Residence Alongside Gun Runner At Three Chimneys

Three Chimneys's Gun Pilot will take up stud duty alongside his sire, Gun Runner, for the 2025 breeding season, the farm said in Wednesday press release. A five-time stakes entrant, Gun Pilot's highest achievement came this year on the Derby undercard where he took home the GI Churchill Downs Stakes. The homebred will be making his final start in the GI Cygames Breeders' Cup Sprint at Del Mar, which comes off a runner-up performance in the GI Forego at Saratoga. A stud fee will be announced following the Breeders Cup. "I...

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A 'Forego'-ne Conclusion: Mullikin Miles Best in the Forego

Siena Farm and WinStar Farm are going to have to make room in their trophy cases. Less than 24 hours after the partnership captured the King's Plate with Caitlinhergrtness (Omaha Beach), they added more hardware when Mullikin (c, 4, Violence--Tulira's Star, by Congrats), stamped as the horse to beat in Saratoga's GI Forego Stakes, proved much the best. In winning his fourth straight and capturing the first Grade I of his career, Mullikin cemented his status as the best older sprinter east of the Mississippi with a comprehensive, front-running victory....

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Breeding Digest: Keep Small Books Out Of The Firing Line

An interval of 136 years between Apollo and Justify, followed by one of just five to Mage, tells us all we need to know about the way modern trainers can (and increasingly prefer to) prepare their Derby prospects. So these remain very early days for the freshmen sires, nowadays responsible for such a large portion of every juvenile crop. In this era of monster books, especially, even the rookie with most action to date has barely scratched the surface. At the moment that's Vekoma, who lies second in the freshman...

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Breeding Digest: Different Shades to Derby Photo

Before anything else, first and foremost we need to acknowledge the unfathomable legacy of Darling My Darling (Deputy Minister) as second dam of both colts denied in an agonizing three-way finish to the GI Kentucky Derby. The odds of that coincidence, for all her elite blood and performance, are best be left to an actuary. In the meantime, however, we should salvage the contrasting narratives aptly condensed, in what remains the definitive test of the American Thoroughbred, by her two grandsons. For our collective obsession with first place is such...

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Gun Pilot Caps Grade I Double For Gun Runner in Churchill Downs

Three Chimneys Farm homebred Gun Pilot (Gun Runner) punched through from in between horses in the final furlong after sitting a midfield trip and skipped clear at odds of 5-1 to give his sire a sweep of the afternoon's seven-furlong Grade I contests in the Churchill Downs S. Here Mi Song (Cross Traffic) dueled heads apart for the early lead with 'TDN Rising Star' Zozos (Munnings) and battled back inside of that one to complete the exacta. Briefly on the Triple Crown trail in 2023 and fifth in the GII...

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Verifying 'Checks' All Boxes In Hot Renewal of Rebel

For all he's accomplished in a relatively short period of time, trainer Brad Cox yet to unsaddle a winner of the third leg of Oaklawn's 3-year-old series, the $1-million GII Rebel S. But he'll have two strong chances to right that wrong in an extremely contentious renewal Saturday afternoon. Verifying (Justify), a half-brother to champion Midnight Bisou (Midnight Lute), rounded out the exacta behind Blazing Sevens (Good Magic) in a sloppy-track running of the GI Champagne S. at Aqueduct Oct. 1 and never truly threatened in the GI Breeders' Cup...

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