GUN Runner will stand next year at Three Chimneys Stud for $125,000, a tasty increase on the $50,000 fee breeders were charged this year.

All the statistics indicate that he is not over-priced, and last weekend he beat Uncle Mo’s record for progeny earnings for a first-crop sire, and he had taken that honour from Tapit.

The horse that propelled Gun Runner (Candy Ride) into this position was the Churchill Downs maiden winner Shotgun Hottie, and he was the stallion’s 22nd individual winner. These have come from 54 runners.

Digging down further, Gun Runner is sire of an astonishing six blacktype winners, four graded stakes winners, and a pair of them are Grade 1 winners. Gunite won the Hopeful Stakes, while Echo Zulu won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and is odds-on to be champion of her division.

Impressive

What is most impressive about this achievement for Gun Runner is that all the indicators suggest his stock will get better with time.

Horse of the Year and six-time Grade 1 winner of almost $16 million, he himself won two of his three starts at two, a maiden special and an allowance race, was a Grade 1 winner at three, and at four and five he took on and beat the best runners about, suffering his only defeat at those ages when runner-up to Arrogate in the Dubai World Cup.

Cupid strikes

Last weekend was also a notable one for another first-crop, or freshman, stallion in the USA. Ashford Stud’s Cupid is responsible for 19 individual juvenile winners, just behind Gun Runner’s 22, and his son God Of Love on Sunday won the Grade 3 Grey Stakes at Woodbine, his first graded stakes winner.

God Of Love joins three-time winner The Sky Is Falling who has won a pair of stakes races, and the Grade 2-placed Desert Dawn as their sire’s blacktype performers.

Cupid is a son of multiple champion sire Tapit (Pulpit) and he won the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita at four, having landed three Grade 2 victories at the age of three. He did not win at two, so to get so many winners in his first crop is surely a pointer to future success.

Yet, you can use Cupid next year at a scarcely believable $5,000. He must be the value sire for 2022 in Kentucky, or anywhere.