Pappacap, winner of the 2021 Grade 2 Best Pal Stakes at Del Mar and a near-millionaire son of Horse of the Year and leading stallion Gun Runner, has been retired and will stand the 2024 breeding season at Gary Broad's Walmac Farm, the farm announced today. His stud fee has been set at $12,500 S&N.
In his career debut in May of his 2-year-old season, Pappacap proved an eye-catching 2 3/4-length winner of a Gulfstream Park maiden special weight. Following that facile score, Pappacap shipped to the West Coast. In an exceptional performance in the $200,000 G2 Best Pal Stakes, Pappacap, ridden by jockey Joe Bravo, raced well-placed behind the pacesetter in the early going of the six-furlong event. He struck the front in upper stretch and kicked clear with a furlong remaining to score by a never-in-doubt 4 3/4 lengths from subsequent stakes winner Finneus to remain unbeaten in his first two career starts for Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse and owner-breeder Rustlewood Farm.
In his initial two-turn start, Pappacap was a game runner-up to eventual Eclipse champion 2-year-old Male Corniche in the 1 1/16-mile G1 American Pharoah Stakes at Santa Anita after being forwardly placed throughout. Pappacap closed out a stellar juvenile campaign with another strong second-place finish to that rival in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Del Mar following an eventful trip. Forced to check off heels into the first turn in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Pappacap settled into stride along the inside and chased the undefeated winner home in a determined effort.
At three, Pappacap competed almost exclusively against the best of his generation, finishing second to top sophomore Jack Christopher in both the G1 Woody Stephens Stakes and the G2 Pat Day Mile Stakes, and third in the G3 Lecomte Stakes to Call Me Midnight and Epicenter, who went on to capture the G1 Travers Stakes after placing in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes and was crowned champion 3-year-old male at season's end. All told, Pappacap won or placed in eight of 12 lifetime starts and earned $842,430.
Standing at Walmac in a deal brokered by Matt Bowling of Bowling Bloodstock, Pappacap is a Florida homebred for George and Karen Russell. Pappacap is by Gun Runner, 2017 Horse of the Year and Champion Older Male and a six-time Grade 1 winner who amassed earnings of $15,988,500. Gun Runner was the record-setting leading first-crop sire of 2021 with progeny earnings of more than $4.2 million. Pappacap was one of just two colts by the esteemed stallion to win a graded stakes race at two that year.
Gun Runner is represented by such top-shelf runners as Echo Zulu, 2021 Eclipse Champion Juvenile Filly; Preakness Stakes winner Early Voting; multiple Grade 1 winner Taiba; and Grade 1 winners Gunite, winner of this year's G1 Forego Stakes, and Cyberknife. Pappacap is produced from the graded stakes-placed Scat Daddy mare Pappascat, who finished second in the 2014 G3 Cardinal Handicap at Churchill Downs. Pappacap hails from the family of Group 1 winner Al Qasr, Champion imported older horse twice in Peru and champion imported stayer twice, multiple stakes winner Delicate Dynamite, and graded stakes winner Boston Bull.
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