2024 Liam’s Map - Gun Slingin Individual Foal

Why We Bought This Horse

UPDATE 2/16/24: Gun Slingin foaled a healthy colt, who we have nicknamed "Gumdrop".

• Gun Slingin was covered on February 24, 2023, by Liam’s Map and checked in and confirmed in foal on March 18, 2023.   Our anticipation is that this foal will be Maryland-bred.
• This is a 2023 Individual Foal Offering and is subject to the WVS Individual Foal Program Addendum to the Wasabi Ventures Stables Thoroughbred Management Agreement.   
•   Highlights of the program:
  • Fixed Price on the Offering - No Ongoing Bills
  • Limited Exposure - Like WVS Racing Programs, there is no chance for Future Expenses. If the Foal offering loses money, WVS absorbs those costs
  • Finite Time - The Foal Offering will be liquidated sometime in its yearling year, so you know when an offering ends.  Because you are not buying the mare, you have a finite time period of commitment (e.g. 6 to 18 months)
  • Reduced Risk - WVS will only open a Foal Offering once a mare has checked in foal to the chosen stallion
  • Perpetual Breeders Bonuses - Even after the foal is sold, a Club member can continue to earn breeding bonuses for the racing life of the horse.
  • You can watch a video about this program by visiting here. 

The BASE PRICE of this foal is $55,100

• Mare Lease $38,500
• Stallion Fee - $0
• Vanning Expense - $2,000
• Boarding Fee Estimate - $12,000
• Vet Estimate - $2,000
• Registration Fees (Jockey Club and State Fees) - $600

An important note is that this foal is a foal share deal with the stallion farm of Liam’s Map.  This means that we have no fee for the stud fee, but we do have to give 50% of the sales proceeds to Lane’s End.

The best way to start off a young broodmare’s career is to send her to proven stallions if at all possible.  This gives a broodmare owner a better handle on the mare’s abilities as a producer (whereas if you send her to a series of first-year stallions and they all flop, you’re none the wiser as to whether the mare’s unsuccessful foals had to do with the covering sires or her own contributions).  As such, we are very excited to be able to send the well-bred maiden mare Gun Slingin to visit Liam’s Map at Lane’s End for her first cover in 2023.

An $800,000 yearling who went on to win 6 of 8 starts at 3 & 4YO for trainer Todd Pletcher, including a NTR performance in the G1 BC Dirt Mile and a win in the G1 Woodward at Saratoga, Liam’s Map so far has 15 stakes winners to his credit from his first 3 crops aged 3YO & up, including G1Ws Colonel Liam, Basin, Juju’s Map and Wicked Whisper.  His fifth crop (the first conceived after he had 2 juvenile G1Ws in his first crop) features yearlings of 2022 that will reach the races in 2022, and he covered huge books of 176 mares in 2021 and 177 mares in 2022 — so his pipeline is loaded.

Liam’s Map also has a pedigree that makes him a fascinating match for Gun Slingin specifically.  A son of the brilliant Unbridled’s Song, Liam’s Map’s grandsire Unbridled is a product of the Tartan Farms breeding program and is inbred 4×4 (sex-balanced) to the foundation mare Aspidistra through her son Dr. Fager (broodmare sire of Unbridled’s sire Fappiano) and her daughter Magic.  Unbridled is also 4×5 (again sex-balanced) to Rough ‘n Tumble, who appears as the sire of Dr. Fager and broodmare sire of In Reality (via his champion daughter My Dear Girl).  On the bottom side of his pedigree, Liam’s Map’s hard-knocking dam Miss Macy Sue is out of the Tartan product Yada Yada, who has Aspidistra’s champion daughter Ta Wee 2×3 (sex-balanced) through Ta Wee’s son Great Above (by Rough ‘n Tumble’s son Minnesota Mac) and her daughter Tweak.  Miss Macy Sue herself has Rough ‘n Tumble 6×4 (sex-balanced), and the stallion Intentionally appears 5x4x5 through his son In Reality and daughter Ta Wee.

That means that Liam’s Map himself is inbred 5×5 to In Reality, and line-bred to Rough ‘n Tumble 6x7x7x5, Aspidistra 6x6x5x6, and Intentionally 6x6x5x6.

Gun Slingin, meanwhile, is sired by Gun Runner, who is 4×4 to Fappiano, including once via Fappiano’s son Quiet American, who is himself inbred 3×2 to Dr. Fager and 4×3 to Princequillo’s daughter Cequillo (she the 3rd dam of both Fappiano and Quiet American).  And Gun Slingin’s broodmare sire is Tapit, whose own broodmare sire is Unbridled and whose 3rd dam, Moon Glitter, is a daughter of In Reality.

This gives Gun Slingin Fappiano 5x5x5, and means she brings to the table 2 more crosses of In Reality (and thus 2 more crosses of Intentionally), 4 more crosses of Dr. Fager, 5 more crosses of Aspidistra, and 6 more crosses of Rough ‘n Tumble.

So while their foal will only show inbreeding of 3×5 to Unbridled, in reality (no pun intended) there is a huge build-up of some very potent pedigree power a bit further back, which will hopefully give the foal from this mating plenty of racing prowess.

All that pedigree deep-dive aside, there is plenty closer up to recommend this mating, too (a “No Rating” on TrueNicks for the match notwithstanding).  We set forth Liam’s Map’s qualifications above, and while Gun Slingin herself was off the board in 5 career starts (though she did finish 4th in 4 maiden special weights at Churchill and the Fair Grounds as a 2 and 3YO), she is a daughter of the red-hot young sire Gun Runner out of a Tapit mare, and is a full-sister to the TDN Rising Star Disarm, who was highly touted prior to his maiden win, a half-sister to the SW/G3P Tap Daddy (a champion and G1W in Venezuela), as well as a 3/4-sister to SPW Total Tap, from the female family of excellent producers Til Forbid and Coragil.

Liam’s Map only has one foal of racing age thus far out of a mare by Gun Runner’s sire Candy Ride (who is as yet unraced), but it is a cross that we believe should work because of the line-breeding it incorporates as outlined above and because the reverse cross has worked very well for Candy Ride (sire of G1Ws Rock Your World, Separationofpowers and Leofric out of mares by sons of Unbridled).  Additionally, Liam’s Map is a half-brother to the similarly-promising young stallion Not This Time (by Giant’s Causeway), whose two top sons, Epicenter and Simplification, are both out of Candy Ride mares.

Finally, we take confidence from the fact that two of Liam’s Map’s G1Ws (plus a third stakes winner) are out of mares by Bernardini, whose broodmare sire is Quiet American, and two more of Liam’s Map’s stakes winners are inbred 4×4 to Fappiano.  Another of his G1Ws (Basin) has Ogygian on his bottom side, who stems from Cequillo tail female, and yet another of Liam’s Map’s stakes winners has Dr. Fager in his female family.

In addition to the positive pedigree patterns, we think this is a nice physical matchup as well, in that the strongly made if a bit compact Liam’s Map will shorten up and strengthen up the lengthier and more feminine Gun Slingin, and hopefully produce a brilliantly fast runner!