Stormy Atlantic, the sire of stakes performers including Eclipse Award champion Stormy Liberal, has been pensioned from stallion duty. The 27-year-old Storm Cat horse, who most recently stood at Hill ‘n’ Dale farm in Kentucky, has returned to his birthplace, Bridlewood Farm in Ocala, Fla., to live out his days. “We welcome our beloved son back home after his amazing career at stud,” George Isaacs, manager for John and Leslie Malone’s Bridlewood, posted on the farm’s Facebook page. “He will spend the rest of his life in his old paddock, eating grass and enjoying the Florida sunshine, until the good Lord is ready for him in horse heaven.” Stormy Atlantic was bred and raced by the late Arthur Appleton, the founder of Bridlewood. He was a multiple stakes winner on the Mid-Atlantic circuit, taking the Havre de Grace Stakes at Pimlico and the Damitrius Stakes at Delaware Park before being retired to stud at Bridlewood in 1999. The young stallion relocated to the Kentucky market at Hill ‘n’ Dale in 2003, and has remained with that operation since. Stormy Atlantic’s top runners include millionaire Stormy Liberal, a two-time winner of the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. He was voted the Eclipse champion turf male of 2018 after his second victory in that race. The stallion also sired 2013 Canadian Horse of the Year Up With the Birds, a classic winner in his home province and a Grade 1 winner in New York. Stormy Atlantic is also the sire of Grade 1 winner and Canadian champion El Tormenta; Canadian champions Conquest Typhoon, Leonnatus Anteas, and Maritimer; U.S. and Canadian Grade 1 winners Get Stormy, Next Question, Stormello, and Stormy Lucy; Mexican Horse of the Year Dahy; Puerto Rican champion Storm Allied; Peruvian champion Dixie Wave; and Argentinian Group 1 winner Victor Security. Overall, Stormy Atlantic is the sire of 114 stakes winners. He is approaching two career milestones, with 974 individual winners overall, and career progeny earnings of $99,896,909. With runners still on the track and some small crops of foals still forthcoming, he is likely to surpass those respective milestones of 1,000 individual winners and $100 million in earnings. Stormy Atlantic covered 15 mares in 2020, according to The Jockey Club’s most recent Report of Mares Bred. He was advertised at $10,000 for this season, which is drawing to a close.“Stormy Atlantic has been generous to Hill ‘n’ Dale and his shareholders,” farm president John Sikura said in a release. “I would like to thank George Issacs from Bridlewood for showing the confidence in us for moving Stormy Atlantic from Ocala. He was truly an important sire, whose influence will endure.”