Early Voting

The exceptional first crop by Horse of the Year Gun Runner suggests strongly that this admirably tough horse is going to be as great a Champion at stud as he was on the track. He has already dominated the title of Champion first-crop sire in 2021 and is running away with the second-crop sires’ competition in 2022. Among his achievements are a magnificent total of six first crop Gr.1 winners, including a Champion juvenile filly in Echo Zulu and a winner of the historic Preakness Stakes in Early Voting.

In defeating generation leader Epicenter by more than a length in the Preakness, Early Voting was gaining his third win from his first four starts, his only reverse coming when beaten only a neck by future Belmont Stakes winner Mo Donegal in the Gr.2 Wood Memorial Stakes. Early Voting had decisively won his only start at two before reappearing at Aqueduct to take the Gr.3 Withers Stakes by 4½ lengths from Un Ojo, winner of the Gr.2 Rebel Stakes on his next appearance.

Early Voting has the bloodlines to match his performances. In addition to having a Horses of the Year as his sire and broodmare sire, his dam Amour d’Ete is a half-sister to the extraordinarily successful Speightstown, sire of more than 130 black-type winners including 25 Gr.1 winners.

Early Voting is inbred 4x3 to Storm Cat through two of this influential stallion’s champions – the ultra-tough Giant’s Causeway and the Canadian two-year-old filly Silken Cat. However Mr Prospector is no nearer than the sixth generation and Seattle Slew is back in the fifth generation. This is significant in view of the success that Gun Runner is already enjoying with mares by PULPIT and his son TAPIT, and Early Voting is well placed to follow suit. From his first 14 starters out of TAPIT mares, Gun Runner has sired Gr.1 winner Society, Gr.2 winner Wicked Halo and Listed winner Red Run. Gun Runner’s Gr.1-winning son Gunite and his Gr.2-placed son McLaren Vale have 2nd dams by PULPIT. Gun Runner’s first starter out of a mare by FLATTER, a stallion whose grandsires are Seattle Slew and Mr Prospector, is the Gr.1-winning Taiba.

Mares by DISTORTED HUMOR should suit Early Voting, as Gun Runner has sired the Gr.1-winning Cyberknife from a grand-daughter.

Early Voting should also work very well with mares with extra STORM CAT blood. Gun Runner’s champion daughter Echo Zulu is inbred 4x4 to STORM CAT and the Gr.1-winning Gunite is inbred 3x3 to GIANT’S CAUSEWAY.

SCAT DADDY, another member of the STORM CAT male line, is already the broodmare sire of Gun Runner’s Gr.2 winner Pappascat.