Grade 1 winner General Quarters, who was sold to bloodstock agent Omer Aydin for $50,000 on Friday at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale, will continue his stallion career in Turkey.
The 10-year-old son of Sky Mesa previously resided at Crestwood Farm in Lexington, Ky., where he was advertised for a fee of $5,000. He debuted at HallMarc Stallions in Florida for the 2012 breeding season before moving to Kentucky in 2014.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Tom McCarthy, whose success as the owner and trainer of the rags-to-riches horse General Quarters was one of the top feel-good stories in racing in recent times, died early Thursday from melanoma. He was 82.
Grade 1 winner General Quarters was represented by his first foal in early January, a filly born at Red Sunset Farm near Ocala, Fla.
The chestnut filly is out of the Pentilicus mare Hannah's Ink, dam of three winners from seven starters, including stakes winner Rate of Exchange. Hannah's Ink is a half-sister to 12 winners, including Alltheway Bertie and Woman of Substance, both stakes winners and producers.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – General Quarters, the two-time Grade 1 winner who made his septuagenarian owner-trainer one of the most popular Kentucky Derby stories of recent years, was retired Monday after finishing last of 13 in the Clark Handicap on Friday at his home track of Churchill Downs.
Tom McCarthy said General Quarters is not injured but that he was concerned about the lack of interest the 5-year-old horse had shown in his recent races.
General Quarters will stay on a synthetic surface in his attempt to make the Breeders’ Cup when he runs Saturday as one of the favorites in the $200,000 WinStar Kentucky Cup, the showcase event in the newly revived Kentucky Cup series at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – The Washington Park Handicap offered a $300,000 purse as recently as 2007. The race wasn’t even run the next year, the purse sank to $200,000 in 2009, and it is down to $100,000 now, but the 2011 edition of the Washington Park, a Grade 3 over 1 1/8 miles on Polytrack, still came up with an appealing cast.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – It was a Polytrack race at Keeneland, the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes, that really put General Quarters’s name out to the racing public for the first time. And, for the first time since the Blue Grass in April 2009, General Quarters is set to return to a synthetic racing surface. The likeable Kentucky-based 5-year-old horse is scheduled to ship here Friday and start Saturday at Arlington in the Grade 3, $100,000 Washington Park Handicap.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Few Kentucky Derby stories have been more compelling in recent years than the one involving General Quarters, but the sequels haven’t been bad, either. Owned and trained by retired high school principal Tom McCarthy, the 5-year-old horse stands a chance to tack on another remarkable tale Sunday when going postward as the 119-pound highweight in the Grade 2, $175,000 Firecracker Handicap, the closing-day feature of the 39-day spring meet at Churchill Downs.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – If racing fans were to vote on which horse is the best horse on the Friday twilight program at Churchill Downs, there is little doubt that General Quarters would win in a landslide.
Ah, but if the issue was only that easy.
General Quarters, who can claim victories in the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes at 3 and the Grade 1 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic at 4, will be making his 5-year-old debut under less-than-ideal circumstances in the ninth of 11 Friday races, a $64,700, classified allowance at seven furlongs.
