Early Voting, 2022 Preakness winner, shines with first weanlings at Keeneland November Sale, standing out among sires like Flightline and Epicenter.

LEXINGTON, KY, UNITED STATES, December 20, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Lexington, KY, USA - With his first crop of weanlings available for purchase at the 2024 edition of the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, 2022 Preakness victor, Early Voting, held his own and demonstrated his promise for the future. The event was stocked with youngsters available from the first crops of sires such as Grade I winners, Drain the Clock, Epicenter, Mystic Guide, Speaker’s Corner and Flightline.

“People are liking the sire so far,” said Amanda Bunt to The Blood Horse prior to the sale. “He also did very well in New York.”

Bunt, who represents Baldwin Bloodstock agency and consigned Early Voting’s offspring to this sale, is referring to the filly out of the winning Ghostzapper mare Owl Moon. The $150,000 purchase by Mandalay Stables is a sibling to four winners including stakes-placed Blue Strike (Smart Strike) and is descended from the immediate family of Grade I victress Stormy Lucy.

Early Voting’s noteworthy selections at the November Keeneland sale, were a colt out of That’s My Baby for $230,000 by Joseph Cooper and another colt out of Echological for $185,000 by Cavalier Bloodstock.

Top weanlings by Early Voting during bidding at the Keeneland Sales, Kentucky

Conditioned by Chad Brown, Early Voting is the only Classic winning son of the incomparable Gun Runner standing at stud. The 2017 Horse of the Year is the first sire in history to have nine millionaires in his first three crops to race. Gun Runner holds court at Three Chimneys Farm for a stud fee of $250,000. He has demonstrated versality as he is represented by his Grade 1 winners over different surfaces over a number of distances.

Early Voting’s pedigree on his dam’s side is just as loaded. The stallion is out of the Tiznow mare Amour D’Ete and was owned by Klaravich Stables during his six-race career. His dam is a half-sibling to champion and world class stallion Spreightstown. Both horses are out of Silken Cat, who collected as a Sovereign Award in 1995 as Canada’s champion 2-year-old filly.

In addition to his Preakness triumph, Early Voting also reigned supreme at 2 in the Grade III Withers Stakes. He lost by a nose in a thrilling edition of the 2022 Grade II Wood Memorial to that year’s Belmont Stakes winner Mo Donegal prior to hitting the line in front in the Preakness.

Early Voting amassed $1.37 million on the track and his racing resume stands at 6-3-1-0.

He will stand for the early part of the season at Taylor Made Stallions, as he did last year with a 90 percent conception rate, for $12,500.

“This stallion is leaving his stamp on his progeny,” Ben Taylor, president of Taylor Made Stallions, said. “They are athletic, muscular and already look like making early racing propositions. The excellent response to his weanlings and his competitive service fee, make for an appealing breeding opportunity that will see him attract many mares for the 2025 season.”

With the immediate appeal of his first season’s progeny, his stand-out modern bloodlines, classic winning performance and remarkable fertility, Mont Liggins Trustee and Research Veterinarian Dr Paddy O’Casiagh, manager of the EV Consortium, is currently in New Zealand and Australia assessing opportunities to additionally stand Early Voting for the 2025/26 Southern Hemisphere season.

Kimberly French
Mont Liggins Charitable Trust
KFrnch@aol.com

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