U.S. Turf Champion Buck's Boy Dies at 29

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Photo: Skip Dickstein
Buck's Boy win the 1998 Breeders' Cup Turf at Churchill Downs

Buck's Boy, the pride of Illinois racing, died at George Bunn's Quarter B Farm near Pleasant Plains, Ill., where he's been retired for more than two decades. The 1998 U.S. champion grass horse was 29. His death was reported Jan. 27 on Facebook by photographer Tom Ferry.

"Quarter B was his home for the past 22 years, and he was so loved by the team there and fans across the Midwest," wrote Ferry.

Owner/breeder/trainer Noel Hickey bred Buck's Boy at his Irish Acres Farm in Illinois. The horse was a true homebred, by Hickey's stallion Bucksplasher and out of his homebred winner Molly's Colleen.

Racing initially for Hickey, Buck's Boy became a winner in his second start at Arlington Park in July of his 3-year-old year when he won by 13 lengths. After a second win two weeks later, Bunn purchased Buck's Boy. The gelding would win his first stakes at 4 in the W.H. Bishop Handicap at Arlington and roll right into his first graded win in his next start, the Hawthorne Gold Cup Handicap (G3) that he won gate-to-wire by 1 1/4 lengths.

Buck's Boy signaled early that 1998 would be an exceptional year. After a close second to multiple grade 1-placed, grade 2 winner Flag Down in the Gulfstream Park Breeders' Cup Handicap (G2T), Buck's Boy captured the 12-furlong Pan American Handicap (G2T) at Gulfstream Park in a track record 2:23.43. He would finish off the board only once in 1998 and add to his résumé victories in the Riggs Handicap and Fort McHenry Handicap on his way to his first grade 1 win in the Turf Classic Invitational Stakes (G1T) at Belmont Park.

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He was second-choice in the Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T), run at Churchill Downs in 1998, and with his consistent front-running form became the first Illinois-bred to win a Breeders' Cup World Championships race. His victory also delivered the first Breeders' Cup win for Hickey, who was his trainer for 20 of his 30 lifetime starts.

The Breeders' Cup Turf nailed down Eclipse champion honors for him. He would also be named Illinois Horse of the Year and the state's champion older horse for 1998. The gelding had already earned Illinois Horse of the Year and champion older horse titles the previous year and would earn them again in 1999.

Buck's Boy continued racing until he was 7, compiling a 16-5-2 record and earned $2,750,148. He was the first Illinois-bred to earn more than $2 million and was the first to win a race with a purse of $1 million or more when he won the $2 million Breeders' Cup Turf.