Doug Cauthen still vividly remembers watching from the tunnel at Del Mar as the field reached the starting gate for the 2017 GI Breeders' Cup Classic. When Gun Runner seized the lead and zipped through an opening quarter of :22.50, Cauthen retreated a little further back into the shadows.“I was sweating bullets,” Cauthen admitted, laughing at the memory. “They were flying on a track that wasn't really providing a lot of opportunities for horses on the lead. That race was loaded and it was his only other time that year running against Arrogate, who had beaten him in their prior meeting.”After a definitive victory that secured his Horse of the Year honors, Gun Runner returned to Three Chimneys Farm, where the six-time Grade I winner was once raised as a yearling. The Three Chimneys and Winchell Thoroughbreds-campaigned superstar spent a few days in the stallion barn so breeders could get a look at the son of Candy Ride before he returned to training with Steve Asmussen for his career finale in the GI Pegasus World Cup. Cauthen, the vice chairman of Three Chimneys, said that at the time, their team's biggest worry was that breeders might underestimate Gun Runner's size and overlook him before his stud career even began.Nine years later, those anxieties feel like a lifetime ago. The stallion that Cauthen and his colleagues once worked to champion to the market in his early days at stud has become a cornerstone of Three Chimneys.The ultimate vindication of Gun Runner's influence came a few weeks ago at Churchill Downs when his undefeated daughter Always a Runner, a third-generation Three Chimneys homebred, captured the GI Kentucky Oaks. Campaigned in partnership with Douglas Scharbauer, the 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' was Gun Runner's first Oaks winner, leading home three other daughters including runner-up Meaning.“It was nice to wake up the next day and say, 'Oh, that happened,' because it was such a long and tiring day, but in a good way,” explained Cauthen. “I've learned that when good things happen, you have to put all the people forward that were part of it, from the grooms to the yearling, broodmare and stallion managers, and let them do the talking. They're the ones that have raised the horses and helped prepare them.”Veronica Reed was honing her skills in the Three Chimneys stallion barn throughout much of Gun Runner's racing career. Led by the infectious enthusiasm of longtime stallion manager Sandy Hatfield, the team would tune in for his major races, knowing the brilliant chestnut would eventually be their charge.Though Reed was working in Australia when Gun Runner first retired to Three Chimneys, she returned in late 2021 just as the young sire's fee rocketed from $50,000 to $125,000 following a breakout freshman season led by Grade I winners Echo Zulu and Gunite.“We were preparing for a productive season and wondering what types of mares he'd have and how many mares he could handle,” Reed recalled.The answer was a staggering 256 mares.“He was an absolute champion in the breeding shed, just like in his racing career,” Reed said. “I always wondered what it felt like to be around Seattle Slew, for example, because he was a wonderful racehorse and then he became an amazing stallion. It's great because now Gun Runner is in the same stall as Seattle Slew.”Gun Runner wins the 2017 Breeders' Cup Classic | Breeders' Cup Eclipse SportswireBy the start of the 2023 breeding season, Sandy Hatfield officially passed on the role of stallion manager. Reed took over at a pivotal moment, as Gun Runner's early success was rapidly transforming him into a leading sire. In the three years since, Gun Runner's fee has climbed to $250,000 as he has amassed 14 Grade I winners and 17 millionaires.“Of course there is pressure with managing a stallion like this, but I believe if I think about that too hard, I will get in my head and I won't do a good job,” Reed admitted. “So I'm focused on as long as he's thriving, I'm happy.”Reed noted that while Gun Runner may not be the most affectionate stallion in the barn, he has one of the biggest personalities and a professional attitude in the breeding shed.“He's Gun Runner through and through,” she shared. “I'd say the only time he's angry is when we don't turn him out if there is a storm. He loves being outside.”Reed has watched with pride as her charge's progeny have excelled on the biggest stages–from Three Chimneys-bred Early Voting winning the 2022 GI Preakness Stakes, to Sierra Leone's 2024 GI Breeders' Cup Classic score and Super Corredora's GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies win the next year, culminating in Always a Runner's Kentucky Oaks victory.“There's a part of me when I see a Gun Runner pass the finish line, I say, 'Well yeah, of course. It's Gun Runner,'” Reed admitted with a proud grin. “We're teeny little parts of that and a little piece of us is in those horses that cross the finish line.”Jeff Danford, the broodmare manager at Three Chimneys, was on hand at Churchill Downs to watch Always a Runner's performance under the lights. Since joining Three Chimneys in 2023, Danford has handled dozens of Gun Runner's progeny as the Torrealba family breeds around 25 mares to their supersire every year.“They're very classy foals and they definitely have a strong will to them, but they also have a brain as well,” he said. “They're very personable foals and they're always put together well. Always a Runner is just as special as it gets, where it's your sire, your mare and you race her. Everything is in-house.”Always Carina and the full-sister to Always a Runner | Sarah AndrewThe filly's success is a testament to a decade of curated breeding. Her granddam Miss Always Ready (More Than Ready) was a $400,000 2-year-old purchase for Three Chimneys in 2014. The mare's first foal was 2019 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf champion Structor (Palace Malice) and her second was 2021 GII Mother Goose Stakes runner-up Always Carina (Malibu Moon).“Always Carina was very talented and unlucky not to win the Grade II in Saratoga,” recalled Cauthen. “Her first foal was Always a Runner. That's kind of the dream for the Torrealba family, to have a legacy herd that produces not only Always a Runner, but now we've got two of her sisters here as well.”Always Carina has been bred exclusively to Gun Runner thus far, and the pipeline includes a 2-year-old filly who is yet to be named, a yearling colt and a second filly that arrived April 19 this year.As Gun Runner's homebred daughters excel on the racetrack and transition to careers as broodmares at Three Chimneys, they are poised to transform his legacy from that of a Hall of Fame racehorse and dominant sire into the bedrock of the farm's future.“He puts that champion mentality and physicality into his progeny,” said Cauthen. “To be around a horse of his caliber is pretty amazing. You get credit you don't deserve by being associated with him.”Added Reed, “I remember through my career people asking, 'What is the most amazing horse you've ever worked with?' I can say I've worked with some amazing horses here and in Australia, but this horse, Gun Runner, he is going to be the one I always will say is the tip-top. I've never met a horse like him. I don't think I ever will. We all have our favorites, but we also have the ones that almost put your name in history, and I think he will put ours in history.”The post Hands on History: For Three Chimneys Farm, Gun Runner Always Delivers appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.