Cherokee Run, a champion sprinter who went on to become a successful stallion, has been pensioned from stallion duty at Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley near Lexington because of fertility problems and lameness issues. He covered 46 mares this year.
A 19-year-old son of Runaway Groom, Cherokee Run began his stallion career in 1996 at the Bell family’s Jonabell Farm, which later was bought by Sheikh Mohammed and renamed Darley.
Cherokee Run has sired champions and grade I winners War Pass and Chilukki, plus 15 other graded/group stakes winners among his total of 44 added-money winners. His runners have earned $41.8 million.
War Pass and Chilukki were both 2-year-old champions. War Pass was voted top juvenile male of 2007 after winning the Bessemer Trust Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (gr. I) and the Champagne Stakes (gr. I). Chilukki, a filly, won top honors after winning the 1999 Vinery Del Mar Debutante (gr. I) and Oak Leaf (gr. I) Stakes and finishing second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (gr. I).
Cherokee Run’s other runners include additional grade I winner Yonaguska and such grade II winners as Dream Run, During, Indian Flare, Kafwain , Sir Cherokee, and Zanjero. This year, he is represented by 15 stakes horses and the earners of $3.8 million.
Bred in Florida by George C. Onett out of the Silver Saber mare Cherokee Dame, Cherokee Run raced for Jill Robinson, winning 13 of 28 races and earning $1,531,818. Frank Alexander and Frank Gomez took turns training him.
Cherokee Run was voted 1994 champion sprinter after winning the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (gr. I) as the favorite and the Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash Stakes (gr. II). Although his strength was sprinting, he managed to run second in the 1993 Preakness Stakes (gr. I) at 1 3/16 miles.
Cherokee Run won four other stakes during his career and also placed in such other stakes as the grade I Metropolitan and Carter Handicaps and the Vosburgh Stakes.