Juvenile champion Game Winner a freshman sire to watch

Game Winner turned out to be one of those racehorses most owners dream about. Purchased for a relative bargain at the most notable yearling market in the world, Game Winner proved a champion on the racetrack and earned back his purchase price many times over.

Bred in Kentucky by Summer Wind Equine, Game Winner was foaled in 2016 and is a son of Candy Ride and the unraced Indyan Giving, a daughter of Hall of Famer A.P. Indy and 2006 champion older mare Fleet Indian.

Indyan Giving unfortunately would produced only three foals, but the two who made it to the races turned out to be Grade 1 winners. Although two years younger than Indyan Giving's first foal, a Speightstown gelding named Flagstaff, Game Winner was the first to strike at the highest level.

Consigned to the 2017 Keeneland September yearling sale, Game Winner was purchased for $110,000 by Ben Glass, agent for owners Gary and Mary West. The bay was put into training with Hall of Famer Bob Baffert.

A couple of months after Triple Crown-winning stablemate Justify went through a six-race streak when he was never beaten to the wire by another horse, Game Winner accomplished a similar feat through four races. Victorious on debut by 5 3/4 lengths going six furlongs, Game Winner was back in the winner's circle 16 days later, taking the Del Mar Futurity (G1) over seven furlongs by 1 1/2 lengths.

Game Winner proved his routing ability over his next two races, winning the American Pharoah (G1) at Santa Anita by 4 1/2 lengths and the Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) at Churchill Downs by 2 1/4 lengths, both over 1 1/16 miles. Among the vanquished in the Juvenile were Knicks Go, who would be voted 2021 Horse of the Year, and Complexity, another subject in this first-crop sire series.

Needless to say, Game Winner was the dominant member of his crop at two and was awarded an Eclipse Award as the champion juvenile male. His abbreviated three-year-old campaign, however, wasn't quite as successful, but it suggested he was still a top-flight racehorse.

In his two preps before the 2019 Kentucky Derby (G1), Game Winner was beaten a nose by Omaha Beach in a thrilling division of the Rebel (G2) at Oaklawn Park and finished second again, by a half-length, to stablemate Roadster in the Santa Anita Derby (G1).

In the Kentucky Derby contested over a sloppy track, Game Winner crossed the wire in sixth, four lengths behind first-place finisher Maximum Security, who coincidentally was also owned by Gary and Mary West. However, Maximum Security's disqualification for interference resulted in Game Winner being elevated to fifth place.

Game Winner made his final career start two months later, winning the Los Alamitos Derby (G3) by five lengths as a 1-20 favorite facing three others. He was subsequently retired because of injury with a mark of 8-5-2-0, $2,027,500.

Sent to Lane's End Farm in Kentucky, Game Winner stood his first three breeding seasons for a fee of $30,000, stands and nurses. That fee was reduced to $20,000 for the 2024 season.

Game Winner's more precocious two-year-olds have not gotten off to as fast a start as other stallions in this series, but one potential standout has been the Bob Baffert-trained Gaming, a brilliant 5 1/2-length winner on debut going 6 1/2 furlongs at Del Mar on Aug. 11.

A pinhooking success when sold this past March at OBS for $250,000 after bringing $40,000 at Keeneland last September, Gaming might be one of several contenders in the Sept. 8 Del Mar Futurity, a race Baffert has won a remarkable 17 times.