A top-class runner on the track, champion RUNHAPPY has jumped from strength to strength with his first four crops proving to be full of talented runners.
Ranked fourth best among fourth crop sires in 2023 by both stakes winners (six) and winners (101), he was also one of only four in the group to sire at least one Grade 1 winner.
RUNHAPPY’s best year on the track came at three but his juvenile crops are quickly proving his foals come out running. In fact, despite entering stud with multiple successful juveniles, RUNHAPPY proved to be the best stallion of his crop at producing juveniles last year with the most juvenile winners of any stallion in his crop. The stallion’s 23 winners were best of any fourth crop sire while his 45.10% winners to starters rate put his fourth among all North American sires with more than 30 runners.
Led by Hopeful Stakes (G1) winner Nutella Fella, RUNHAPPY is the sire of seven juvenile stakes winners overall from his first four crops – on par with the numbers his runners have put up as 3- and 4-year-olds. Three of this first four crops have also produced at least one juvenile stakes winner.
One of those stakes winners went on to run in the Kentucky Derby (G1) after 2021 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes (G2) winner Smile Happy earned a Grade 1 placing in the Blue Grass Stakes (G1) at three. Each of that colt’s three seasons on the track have included at least one graded stakes placing with the now-5-year-old also winning the Alysheba Stakes (G2) last year at four.
Precociousness isn’t where RUNHAPPY’s siring ability stops, however. The stallion has sired versatile runners with stakes winners coming from 4 ½ furlongs to 1 1/8 miles. His graded stakes winners have come at similar distances with their graded stakes victories coming from six furlongs to 1 1/16 miles.
RUNHAPPY is already the sire of five winners in 2024 – the second best of active sires in his crop – with 3-year-old Tanya Showers his first stakes performer of the year, finishing second in the Mockingbird Stakes just half a length away from the win exactly two weeks after winning a Maiden Special Weight at Oaklawn Park.
With his biggest crop of runners still to come, RUNHAPPY stands for $10,000 in 2024.