In a year where multiple Claiborne stallions have been named ‘value sires’ by the media, RUNHAPPY is the latest to join the club after Paulick Report’s Joe Nevills put him on his First Team.
In a Boxing Day article on Budding Stars, Nevills points out that RUNHAPPY has earned breeders’ support with his runners’ exploits – his numbers of mares bred last year the second-highest year-of-year gain from 2021 when he received 144 mates. That support has also carried over to the sales ring, where RUNHAPPY saw his yearlings sell for up to $350,000 with an average of $61,222 for 45 sold from 51 offered.
While RUNHAPPY was a champion sprinter, he’s proven that he can sire both sprinters and routers with his son Happy American winning a stakes over 1 1/16 miles on the same day this article came out. As Nevills points out, that’s not unusual for the sire.
“Of his 10 progeny stakes wins, the scales tip heavily toward the sprinters, including G2 Vosburgh Stakes winner Following Sea, but he’s proven that he is by no means one-dimensional at the sport’s highest levels,” Nevills said before Happy American’s win.
“RUNHAPPY sent a runner from his second crop to this year’s Kentucky Derby, Smile Happy, off a win in the G2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes around 1 1/16 miles, and runner-up efforts in the G2 Risen Star Stakes and G1 Blue Grass Stakes going as far or longer. Following Sea, for all the success he had as a sprinter, also picked up a Grade 1 placing in the Haskell Stakes at 1 1/8 miles.”
RUNHAPPY saw a small fee rise to $15,000 this year but as the article points out, that may prove to be large value if his success continues.
“After really coming into his own in 2022, both on the racetrack and in the breeding shed, Claiborne Farm raised RUNHAPPY’s fee from $12,500 to $15,000; nothing drastic, but a little marker that the stallion’s stock is rising. Now that he’s got the long-term pipeline to back him up, it just might continue to rise,” he said.