As a runner, Twirling Candy was a notably consistent and versatile performer, and those traits have also characterized his stud career. Going into Belmont Stakes (G1) weekend, he had been represented by nine individual grade 1 winners, five on dirt, four on turf, and at distances ranging from six to 10 furlongs. On June 8, a new grade 1 winner at a new distance added to that total as Twirling Candy's 5-year-old daughter, Ag Bullet, defeated males to take the 5 1/2-furlong Jaipur Stakes (G1T) at Saratoga Race Course.
Twirling Candy himself captured black-type events on dirt, turf, and all-weather, ranging from the seven-furlong Malibu Stakes (G1), which he took in a new track record, through the one-mile Oceanside Stakes, to the Strub Stakes (G2), Del Mar Derby (G2T) and Californian Stakes (G2), all at nine furlongs (and all on different surfaces). He also only missed by a head in the 10-furlong Pacific Classic (G1).
Retired to stand at Lane's End Farm in Versailles, Ky., at a fee of $15,000, which dropped to $10,000 for his third and fourth seasons, Twirling Candy has steadily risen up the ranks and has stood at $60,000 for each of the last four years. To date, he's been represented by 59 stakes winners, the best including the Preakness Stakes (G1) captor Rombauer , Gift Box , Finley'sluckycharm, Pinehurst , and Beyond Brilliant. He's enjoying a good year in 2025 and currently sits in eleventh on the General Sires list, with seven stakes winners—five of them graded. In passing, we'll also note that Twirling Candy's sire, Candy Ride , is currently second on that same table, while his other sons Gun Runner (Leading Fifth Season Sire) and Vekoma (Leading Second Season Sire) occupy third and eighth positions.
Sunday's winner, Ag Bullet, appears to have inherited some of that Twirling Candy versatility, at least as far as distance is concerned. She has won seven of her 14 starts, the Jaipur at 5 1/2 furlongs, the Ladies Turf Sprint Stakes (G2T), Monrovia Stakes (G3T) and Wishing Well Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs, and the Lady Shamrock Stakes and Osunitas Stakes at a mile, and she also missed by just a neck and a nose in the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint (G1T) at over five furlongs.
Ag Bullet's dam, Noble Grey, a daughter of Forestry, ran just twice, winning a maiden special weight and a claimer at Colonial Downs while sprinting on turf. She is the dam of nine other foals, and eight other winners, including the minor black-type placed Give Em Heck Beck, and Macroeconomics, the dam of black-type placed Golden Tabby.
The second dam of Ag Bullet, the Holy Bull mare Never Fail, earned minor black-type with a second in the Three Rings Stakes and third in the Boots 'n Jackie Stakes, both at Calder. She is half sister to the Schuylerville Stakes (G3) scorer, How About Now, herself dam of three stakes winners, including Lovely Lil, who was successful in the Go For Wand Handicap (G2), and subsequently produced stakes winner Lovely Ride to the cover of Candy Ride. Never Fail is also half sister to Kris's Intention, dam of the speedy siblings Abraaj (Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap-G2) and Leelanau (Kentucky Breeders' Cup Stakes-G3), and granddam of Maftool, a group/graded winner in England and Dubai.
The family goes back to Sunstep, who was imported from England in the early 1920s and who numbers among her descendants Never Say Die, who in 1954 became only the second North American-bred to win the Epsom Derby (following Iroquois, who scored 73 years earlier). The branch of Sunstep's family that leads to Ag Bullet had been rather quiet up until Ag Bullet's third dam, Peaceful Intention, who was notably inbred 3x4x5 to Eight Thirty, who himself was an intensely inbred horse, having Rock Sand and Fairy Gold, two of the grandparent of Man o' War 3x5.
Ag Bullet is the only stakes winner by Twirling Candy out of a mare by Forestry—a horse whose granddam has some significant pedigree similarities to Twirling Candy's male-line ancestor, Fappiano—but Twirling Candy has another 17 stakes winners, seven graded, including grade one winners Rombauer and Pinehurst out of mares by sons or grandsons out of Forestry's sire, Storm Cat.
