Sierra Leone (Gun Runner–Heavenly Love, by Malibu Moon), last year's champion 3-year-old colt, will join the roster at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Kentucky next year, the operation announced Wednesday. Racing for Peter Brant, Susan Tabor, Derrick Smith, Westerberg, and Brook Smith and trained by Chad Brown, Sierra Leone is expected to make his final career start in the Nov. 1 GI Breeders' Cup Classic, a race he won in 2024.Sierra Leone, who topped the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale when selling for $2.3 million, was tabbed a 'TDN Rising Star' following his debut victory at Aqueduct the following November. He faced only graded company from then on and has hit the board in all 13 starts to date, with five wins and current earnings of $7,006,200.“I've trained a lot of great horses, and to me, I'd say unequivocally he's the best horse I've had my hands on…he's just in a different league,” Brown said of Sierra Leone.During his sophomore campaign, Sierra Leone won the GII Risen Star Stakes and GI Toyota Blue Grass Stakes en route to an agonizingly close runner-up effort in the GI Kentucky Derby and a third-place finish in the GI Belmont Stakes.Second in the GII Jim Dandy Stakes and third in the GI Travers Stakes, he concluded his championship season with a 1 1/2-length victory in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic.In 2025, Sierra Leone added a win in the GI Whitney Stakes and runner-up efforts in the GI Stephen Foster Stakes and GI Jockey Club Gold Cup.“We're incredibly excited to welcome Sierra Leone to Ashford for the coming season,” commented Ashford Stud's Dermot Ryan. “When you hear someone like Chad Brown say that he is the best he has ever trained, it doesn't get any better than that.”Sierra Leone's 2026 stud fee is still to be announced.The post Sierra Leone to Ashford Stud in 2026 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.