Gun Runner’s 3-year-old filly Wicked Halo won the second graded stakes of her career Friday at Saratoga with a perfectly-run race in Friday’s $250,000 Prioress S. (G2) at Saratoga.
Winner of last year’s Adirondack S. (G2) over this same surface, won a pair of listed stakes during the Churchill Downs spring meet leading into the Prioress.
Breaking from post 1 in the field of nine, Wicked Halo was midpack along the fence down the backstretch. She cut into her deficit as the swift early fractions began to take their toll on the frontrunners. With no room in front of her, she went four-wide into the stretch and made the lead with a furlong to go. Sterling Silver came on late with Wicked Halo holding her off by a neck in 1:10.16 for the six furlongs on a fast track.
“Her Adirondack victory last year was very special, the first stakes winner for Gun Runner” said her trainer Steve Asmussen. “We are in an extremely blessed position, she reminds me a lot of her mom (who also won the Adirondack).”
Wicked Halo is a Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC homebred out of Just Wicked. She is now 5-0-3 in nine starts and has earned $574,050.
In addition to being far and away the leading Second-Crop sire of 2022, Gun Runner is also in the top 10 nationally on the General Sire list. He has seven graded stakes winners and more than $8.8 million in progeny earnings to date.
