Welcome to 2024 Kentucky Derby Prospect Profiles, where we’ll take a look each week at a recent winner on the Triple Crown trail, usually from the Road to the Kentucky Derby schedule that offers qualifying points for the first leg of the series. The 1 ¼-mile Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve will be held May 4, 2024, at Churchill Downs.

This week, we’ll take a closer look at Sierra Leone, winner of the $400,000 Risen Star Stakes on Feb. 17 at Fair Grounds. The Gun Runner colt earned 50 points toward qualifying for the 2024 Kentucky Derby with that win and moved into first place on the latest Road to the Kentucky Derby leaderboard with 55 total points.

Racing Résumé: Sierra Leone attracted attention before he ever set hoof on a racetrack. The Gun Runner colt topped the prestigious Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale in 2022 on a final bid or $2.3 million as a yearling (1-year-old Thoroughbred), which typically indicates the Thoroughbred is impressive physically and impeccably bred. Racehorses with even minor physical flaws or modest pedigrees rarely sell for prices that high.

In three starts to date, Sierra Leone has shown the substance to match the sizzle with two wins and one second from three starts. The dark bay or brown colt rallied from sixth in his Nov. 4 debut at Aqueduct and won a one-mile maiden special weight race on a fast track by 1 ¼ lengths, He made his stakes debut four weeks later in the 1 1/8-mile Remsen Stakes on a muddy track at Aqueduct, where he rallied to the front in early stretch only to lose by a nose to another well-bred colt in Dornoch, the full-sibling (same dam [mother], same sire [father]) to 2023 Kentucky Derby winner Mage.

Sierra Leone returned from an 11-week layoff in the Risen Star and was attempting to buck history as only his sire, Gun Runner, in 2016 had won the race off a layoff of more than seven weeks from the last 16 editions. Trainer Chad Brown added blinkers to improve focus for the race and Sierra Leone settled into a nice rhythm early while racing ninth of 12 through an easy half-mile in :49.67 under Tyler Gaffalione. He started his sustained rally on the final turn on the sloppy (sealed) track, was angled to the outside entering the stretch, and then finished resolutely from the outside to reel in Gun Runner Stakes and Lecomte Stakes winner Track Phantom for a half-length win.

Considering Sierra Leone was returning from a long layoff, closed into a very slow pace, and was at least 10 paths wide near the top of the stretch, his Risen Star Stakes win looks like a near-perfect 3-year-old debut. He completed his final furlong in an exceptional :12.23, perhaps aided by the sloppy surface and slow pace but nonetheless very fast for a 3-year-old traversing 1 1/8 miles off a layoff.

“I thought he showed a lot to run down a pretty good horse who was in form and fit and didn’t have to ship. This proved a lot to me today,” said Brown, who will point Sierra Leone to the $1 million Toyota Blue Grass Stakes April 6 at Keeneland for his final prep for the Kentucky Derby.

Speed Figures: Sierra Leone improved his Equibase Speed Figure 10 points from his career debut to a 99 for running second in the Remsen. Likewise, his Beyer Speed Figure jumped 20 points from a 71 in his debut win to a 91 for the Remsen. Both speed-figure makers essentially have Sierra Leone pairing that number in his season debut with a 98 from Equibase for the Risen Star and a 90 Beyer Speed Figure. He needs to gets faster, but with seven weeks between the Risen Star and the Blue Grass, Sierra Leone should be positioned ideally to take a big step forward April 6 at Keeneland in his second start of the year.

Running Style: Sierra Leone to date has been a dedicated one-run closer throughout his career, although he did show a hint of tactical speed in his debut. There was a stretch in recent Kentucky Derby history that was dominated by 3-year-olds who preferred to race on or near the lead, but that has evened out in recent years with several closers prevailing. Horses rallying from off the pace often face challenges outside of their control such as pace and traffic that can hurt their chances to win, especially in a race like the Kentucky Derby with a 20-horse field.

Connections: Sierra Leone is owned by the partnership of Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith, Westerberg, Brook Smith, and Peter Brant. The first four are key associates in the Coolmore global breeding and racing operation. Tabor won the Kentucky Derby in 1995 with Thunder Gulch while Tabor and Smith teamed to run second with Lion Heart in 2004. Brook Smith races as Rocket Ship Racing, while Brant returned to the sport in 2016 after a couple of decades away and has regained his status as one of the more prominent owners in Thoroughbred racing. Before leaving the sport in the 1990s, Brant raced stars such as Just a Game, Waya, and Gulch. Brant was a partner in the ownership group that won the 1984 Kentucky Derby with Swale and bred the aforementioned Thunder Gulch.

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Chad Brown is a four-time Eclipse Award winner as outstanding trainer. He won the Preakness Stakes in 2017 with Cloud Computing and in 2022 with Early Voting. Brown, a former assistant to Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel, finished second in the 2018 Kentucky Derby with Good Magic.

Tyler Gaffalione is Sierra Leone’s third rider in as many starts. Gaffalione was the 2015 Eclipse Award winner as outstanding apprentice jockey and has emerged as an elite talent in the saddle, ranking in the top six in both purse earnings and wins every year since 2020. Gaffalione won the 2019 Preakness Stakes aboard War of Will.

Pedigree Notes: Sierra Leone is from the third crop of 2017 Horse of the year Gun Runner, a six-time Grade 1 winner who stamped himself a future Hall of Famer with back-to-back wins in the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Classic and $16.3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes in January 2018. Gun Runner is off to a terrific start to his second career as a stallion as the leading first-crop sire in 2021, to second-crop sire in 2022, and leading third-crop sire in 2023. Gun Runner is capable of siring both elite sprinters and distance horses, with 2022 Preakness Stakes winner Early Voting, 2022 Cotillion Stakes winner Society, 2022 Arkansas Derby winner Cyberknife, and 2022 Runhappy Santa Anita Derby winner Taiba examples of top-level, two-turn runners. Gun Runner also is the sire of 2023 Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity winner Locked, another well-regarded 2024 Kentucky Derby hopeful.

The bottom half of Sierra Leone’s pedigree also offers significant reason for optimism. Dam (mother) Heavenly Love, by Malibu Moon, won the Grade 1 Darley Alcibiades Stakes at 1 1/16 miles in 2017. Sierra Leone’s grandam (maternal grandmother) is stakes winner Darling My Darling, by Deputy Minister, who finished second by a head in the Grade 1 Frizette Stakes at 1 1/16 miles in 1999. Grade 1 winner Roamin Rachel, who produced Japanese Horse of the Year Zenno Rob Roy, is Sierra Leone’s third dam (maternal great-grandmother).

Derby Potential: Sierra Leone was bred to be a star and identified as a potential standout as a yearling. To date, he has lived up to high expectations. Trainer Chad Brown seems to have mapped out a perfect plan to have Sierra Leone poised to improve on seven weeks rest in the Blue Grass Stakes with a chance to run his best race four weeks later in the Kentucky Derby in his third start of the year. He can run all day and on any surface with quality starts on fast, muddy, and sloppy main tracks. If I had to pick in February one 3-year-old to at least finish in the top three in the 2024 Kentucky Derby, that horse would be Sierra Leone.

“He is an incredible horse and Chad Brown and his team have done an incredible job with him,” Gaffalione said. “You always keep dreaming of the big races like the Derby and horses like this help you keep the dream alive.”