A daughter of Gun Runner commanded a co-session-topping price of $1.05 million late into the third day of selling at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale Sept. 11. Douglas Scharbauer bought the filly, consigned as Hip 695, from the Taylor Made Sales Agency consignment.
Hip 695, bred by Three Chimneys Farm, is out the grade 2-placed Malibu Moon mare Always Carina. She is the seventh seven-figure yearling for Gun Runner at this year's sale. Through Day 3, Gun Runner is the leading sire by gross in the Keeneland September Sale.
"Donny Denton (general manager of Scharbauer's Valor Farm) and Ken Carson, who retired two years ago, we all three looked at her and liked her very much," Scharbauer said of the filly. "I was hoping I could get her for less than a million dollars, but I could see why she brought that. We like her."
"She was just a beautiful filly, had a good walk to her. Everybody was lining up for her. We knew she was going to sell well. Her mind is great. She showed really well at the barn. Things lined up and she sold well," said Taylor Made's Frank Taylor.
On the track, Gun Runner has produced 10 grade 1 winners and 13 millionaires, highlighted this year by Sierra Leone, runner-up in the Kentucky Derby (G1). He is also the sire of grade 1-winning millionaires Gun Pilot, Society, and Vahva.
Scharbauer purchased three other horses on the third day of the sale. Hip 628 is a Gun Runner filly out of the Congrats mare Strive, purchased for $650,000. Scharbauer went to $500,000 for Hip 678, by Not This Time out of the graded stakes-producing mare Wealth Creation, and $600,000 for Hip 719, a Medaglia d'Oro filly out of Belle Street. He bought two Gun Runner fillies on the opening day of the sale for $1.5 million (Hip 24) and $500,000 (Hip 153) respectively.
"Out of all the stuff I bought, the first one, Hip 24 was just, it just takes my breath away. By Gun Runner, out of a Tapit mare, her looks are second to none. She's probably as nice as anything I've bought in six or seven years," said Scharbauer.
Scharbauer said Donny Denton and Ken Carson get together every year in September and look at 50-70 head, and narrow it down to four or five that he will try to buy.
"As my father would say, I've been to five county fairs, four goat ropings, and three mule races, but I've never seen anything like this," he said on the atmosphere at Keeneland.
"It's first class, the way they do it, it's first class. I'm extremely happy with what I bought this time. In fact, probably as happy this year as I've ever been with what I've bought," said Scharbauer.
