The late-charging Red Route One has been a frequent fixture in classic trials every since he broke his maiden in a Kentucky Downs maiden special weight in September last year. Following that score, he ran in six consecutive graded stakes with his most notable efforts including a third in the Breeders' Futurity (G1), and a fourth in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes (G2) at 2, and this term a second in the Southwest Stakes (G3) and second in the Rebel Stakes (G2). Despite this solid body of work, a sixth in the Arkansas Derby (G1) meant that Red Route One had garnered insufficient points to make the field in the Kentucky Derby (G1). It does appear, however, that he will be a factor in the second classic, the Preakness Stakes (G1), by virtue of his victory in this weekend's qualifying race, the Bath House Row Stakes at Oaklawn Park.
Red Route One is from the second crop of the 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner . Of course, Gun Runner's first crop was one of the most spectacular first crops in living memory, containing no less than 16 stakes winners, 10 graded, including champion 2-year-old filly Echo Zulu; Preakness scorer Early Voting ; three-time grade 1 winner Taiba ; Cyberknife , who was successful in the Arkansas Derby and Haskell Invitational Stakes (G1); Gunite , who took the Hopeful Stakes (G1) at 2; and the Cotillion Stakes (G1) heroine Society.
With that astonishing first-crop success, it comes as something of a surprise to find that Red Route One is the first stakes winner from the second crop by Gun Runner. That of course isn't the whole story, and Gun Runner does have another 10 second-crop horses that have already earned places in black-type events including Disarm , who earned his way into the Kentucky Derby field with a second in the Louisiana Derby (G2) and a third in the Lexington Stakes (G3). It's also worth remembering that Gun Runner himself demonstrated continual improvement throughout his career and was a much more formidable performer at 4 than at 3, so it's likely that this second crop includes some other individuals who will make their mark further on down the line.
Whatever his fate in the Preakness and beyond, Red Route One certainly has a pedigree worthy of a classic horse. He's not only by a champion but he is out of a full sister to one. His dam, Red House—whose only previous foal is Red Route One's stakes-winning full brother Red Run —is a sister to champion 3-year-old filly Untapable, who won the Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1), Kentucky Oaks (G1), Mother Goose Stakes (G1), Cotillion Stakes (G1) and Apple Blossom Handicap (G1). A daughter of Tapit , Red House is also a sister to Double Tapped, dam of graded stakes winner Majestic Eagle, and half sister to Paddy O'Prado, who not only won five graded events, including the Secretariat Stakes (G1) on the lawn, but also took third behind Super Saver and Ice Box in the Kentucky Derby.
Red Route One's second dam, Fun House, took the Buena Vista Handicap (G2), and is a half sister to the graded stakes winning and grade 1 placed sprinter Early Flyer. The fourth dam, Carols Christmas was only a minor winner but proved an exceptional foundation mare. She was dam of three stakes winners, including the Hollywood Derby (G1) scorer Olympio, and Call Now, the third high-weighted 2-year-old filly of 1994. Carol's Christmas is also the ancestress of 27 stakes winners, including other grade 1 winners Tapizar (by Tapit, so closely related to the dam of Red Route One), Pyro (by Tapit's sire, Pulpit), Cuvee, and Lauda Sion.
Carol's Christmas is from a branch of a family that has enjoyed one of the most spectacular rises from mediocrity that we can recall. The unlikely foundation mare is her granddam Brighton View—ancestress of a further 21 stakes winners in addition to those descending from Carol's Christmas, including grade 1 winners Majestic Harbor, On Fire Baby, and Danza. For a family founder of Brighton View's caliber, it would be hard to imagine a less auspicious background.
A foal of 1962, Brighton View won once in 18 starts for earnings of $1,661. What's more, she owned a pedigree full of names that even in her own time would have qualified as extremely obscure. She is daughter of Tuscany, who appears never to have sired a stakes winner, and appears in black-type winning pedigrees only though descendants of Brighton View. Tuscany was by The Rhymer, a son of the imported English horse St. Germans and from a male line that has long since died out in the Northern Hemisphere. Brighton View's dam, Evening Sun, was unraced and by Fritz Maisel (a Domino-line horse who appears in the pedigrees of stakes winners through only one other mare). Brighton View's second dam is by Dartle, a horse who also doesn't seem to appear in any animal of note, other than through Brighton View. Nor was there any cause for optimism in the female family. Looking at in the direct female line, none of Brighton View's first four dams had produced a stakes winner, and in fact there was just one black-type scorer—and that twice indented— to be found in the family under those ancestors.
Determining what factors caused the dramatic upgrading in fortunes of the family from Brighton View onwards is something of a guessing game, but she is interesting in having a considerable accumulation of "Old American" strains, which even at the time of her birth had been mostly pushed aside by imports such as Nasrullah, Bull Dog, and Sir Gallahad III. Particularly striking is that her dam was inbred 4x4 to High Time (leading sire once and leading sire of 2-year-olds, three times), a horse who had the tremendously influential stallion Domino in his pedigree 3x4x2, and she also has another cross of Domino's great son Commando (the grandsire of High Time). Meanwhile, Brighton View's sire had three crosses of the great Domino-line stallion Peter Pan (by Commando).
Red Route One is one of four stakes winners by Gun Runner out of a Tapit mare, the others including grade 1 winner Society and grade 2 scorer Wicked Halo. There are also four stakes-placed horses on the cross, including the previously mentioned Kentucky Derby challenger Disarm. Gun Runner has also sired the stakes-winning Optionality out of a mare by Tapit's sire Pulpit. With regard to the Gun Runner/Tapit cross, we can note that Gun Runner is inbred to Fappiano, and that Tapit introduces a third Fappiano cross, through his dam, Tap Your Heels, who is by Unbridled (who has a similar background to Quiet American). Gun Runner's dam is also a Storm Bird/Fappiano cross, where Tapit's dam is a Fappiano/Nijinsky II (bred similarly to Storm Bird) cross. Finally we will note that Gun Runner and Tapit are from the 'L' mtDNA haplotype, also the mtDNA line of Red Route One himself.
