Stage Raider, a half-brother to Triple Crown winner Justify, will make his on-track debut Saturday during the Pegasus World Cup undercard at Gulfstream Park.
The 3-year-old son of Pioneerof the Nile will enter a seven-furlong sprint over the main track at Gulfstream, racing as a homebred for John D. Gunther of Glennwood Farm. Trainer Chad Brown will give rider Jose Ortiz the leg up on the colt, who is the 9-2 second choice on the morning line.
Stage Raider is out of the 2018 Kentucky Broodmare of the Year Stage Magic, a Ghostzapper mare who is the dam of three winners from four foals to race.
Stage Magic's star offspring is Justify, a son of Scat Daddy who went undefeated in six career starts, winning on debut, then taking an optional claiming race and the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby before sweeping the Triple Crown. He finished the year earning Eclipse Award honors as champion 3-year-old male and Horse of the Year.
Justify now stands at Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky., where his first foals will be yearlings of 2021.
The mare has also produced The Lieutenant, a Grade 3-winning son of Street Sense who stood one Northern Hemisphere season in New York, but was killed during a raid at Haras Barlovento in Peru while standing the 2019 Southern Hemisphere breeding season. His first foals are also yearlings.
Stage Raider was offered at the 2019 Keeneland September Yearling Sale by the Glennwood Farm consignment, but the Gunther family elected to hold on to the colt, after he hammered below his reserve with a final bid of $950,000.
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