With a number of high-profile four-year-olds in action this Saturday (May 31) at Woodbine Mohawk Park for the opening leg of the Graduate Series, one four-year-old will make his seasonal debut on that card outside of stakes competition.
That horse is 2023 Metro Pace champion Captain Quarters. The runner-up in last year's Pepsi North America Cup, Captains Quarters starts his four-year-old season this weekend and his trainer, Herb Holland, has high hopes for his stable star in 2025 after a three-win sophomore season in 2024.
"The last half of the season, we weren't real happy with," Holland, speaking on behalf of himself and owner Rich Stiles, told Trot Insider while confirming that a stud career is likely on the horizon. "I don't think we got to showcase him the way he should have been. We'd like to try to redeem him a little bit this year, and hopefully things go well for us and we can maybe look at a stud career in 2026."
Sporting a speed badge of 1:49.1, a best beaten time of 1:47, nearly $1 million — $971,356 — in earnings and a pedigree with extreme depth of accomplishments, Captains Quarters is sure to attract significant attention as a stallion prospect. His connections will start on their quest to add to his resume on Saturday in an overnight event at Mohawk. He's drawn post 10 in the opening dash on the card with driver James MacDonald at the controls. He's the only horse of the 10 making a season's debut, yet Captains Quarters has been installed as the 5-2 morning line favourite.
Captains Quarters comes into Saturday's test off a single qualifier on May 16 at Mohawk where the bay finished fifth, pacing his mile in 1:54 while finishing four-plus lengths back of Larry Karr. Holland indicated that the Graduate leg happening on the same night was never in the plans, but an early season debut stateside was nixed recently after Holland decided the stabling options at Oak Grove — where the second leg of the Kentucky Sire Stakes goes postward on Monday, June 2 — weren't in the horse's best interests.
"The owner and I talked about it," noted Holland. "The stabling is on the grounds. There's no farms nearby...It's not the best case scenario for that horse. He gets a little uptight when he's not getting out and getting paddock time.
"We're going to start him here and maybe give him a couple of starts here because he has another series coming up at The Red Mile and what we're trying to do is just pick our spots with him early, because it's a long year, and keep him fresh for later."
Keeping that plan in mind, Holland indicated Captains Quarters is in fine form now despite just one charted line this season.
"I think he's good," Holland stated confidently. "I'd rather not have the 10 hole on Saturday but it is what it is.
"I've schooled him faster than he qualified. He actually bled in the qualifier, and I put him on Lasix and then schooled him the next week and he was good."
(Standardbred Canada; photo of Captains Quarters winning his elimination heat of the 2024 Little Brown Jug)