IRISH couple Brendan and Olive Gallagher are not unfamiliar with breeding Grade 1 winners, and their latest success in that department came last weekend in Canada when Carson’s Run, on just his third start, landed the centrepiece Summer Stakes.

This two-year-old feature was a first stakes win for the colt, and the first Grade 1 winner for Ashford Stud’s Cupid, a son of Tapit (Pulpit).

Brendan and Olive bred the dual champion Monomoy Girl with Michael Hernon, and she was also by a son of Tapit, and that was Tapizar. Another common factor both Monomoy Girl and Carson’s Run share is that they are each out of mares by Henny Hughes (Hennessy).

Carson’s Run is the first foal out of Hot N Hectic, a minor winner in the USA at four, having made just a single start at two and at three.

Offered for sale by the Gallaghers’ Frankfort Park Stud in 2019, she failed to reach her modest reserve and was fortunately retained. This year Hot N Hectic foaled her second produce, a colt by Violence (Medaglia D’Oro), and was covered by Maxfield (Street Sense).

Carson’s Run races for West Point Thoroughbreds and Stephen Bouchey, and they will surely now take up the offer of a free run in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, a bonus for winning the Summer Stakes. The colt owes nothing to eyeryone involved with him along the way, as he sold for $35,000 as a foal at Keeneland, for $67,000 as a yearling at Fasig-Tipton, and most recently for $170,000 at Ocala as a breezer. Now he has won more than $300,000 for connections.

A first Grade 1 winner in what is a solid female family for some four decades, Carson’s Run is out of a half-sister to seven winners, the best of which is Rated R Superstar (Kodiac Kowboy). That gelding is now a 10-year-old, still racing, and eight of his 13 wins have been in stakes races. Though many were minor stakes, three were at Grade 3 level, including at Keeneland and Gulfstream Park, and his earnings are nudging very close to $1.85 million. He was placed once in a Grade 1 race, at the age of two.

Longevity

Hot N Hectic is a daughter of the Gold Case (Forty Niner) winning mare Wicked Wish, and she was among 10 sons and daughters of juvenile winner Holy Wish (Lord At War), four of whom were victorious in stakes races. Being multiple winners and longevity are features of this family, with the best of those four stakes winners being Wishful Tomcat (Tactical Cat). He won 18 times, from two to eight, and the Grade 3 Discovery Handicap at Aqueduct was the highlight of his seven stakes wins.

You have to go back to the fourth dam of Hot N Hectic, Papal Decree (Noble Decree), to find the next Grade 1 winner. That mare bred the juvenile Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes winner Papal Power (Miswaki).

This is the second weekend in a row that a Grade 1 two-year-old winner in the USA and Canada has been produced by a daughter of the talented sprinter Henny Hughes (Hennessy). Last weekend I wrote about Tamara (Bolt D’Oro), a daughter of the Brilliant Beholder (Henny Hughes).

Cupid strikes

Carson’s Run is from the third crop of Cupid, who covered this year at Ashford for just $5,000 (he cost $12,500 in each of his first two seasons), and other smart performers by the grey include Desert Dawn, winner of the Grade 2 Santa Anita Oaks, runner-up in the Grade 1 Clement L Hirsch Stakes twice, and third in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks. Cupid has sired seven stakes winners to date.

A Grade 1 winner of $1.7 million, and successful from a mile to 10 furlongs, Cupid gained his biggest win in the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita, which he won by more than three lengths, while his victory in the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes was achieved in a time faster than that recorded by such stars as American Pharoah, Curlin and Will Take Charge. He was also a wide-margin winner of the Grade 2 West Virginia Derby.