BY BROCK SHERIDAN
DECEMBER 7, 2002—Florida-bred Captain Squire, who would go on to win $1.3 million in his career, broke his maiden at Hollywood Park in his second start for trainer Jeff Mullins and owner Jeffrey S. Diener of Sacramento, Calif.
With jockey Chance Rollins in the irons, Captain Squire won a $32,000 maiden claiming by five-and-a-half lengths going a mile-and-a-sixteenth to start a three-race win streak that included taking a $62,500 claiming race at Santa Anita in January of 2002. Diener then partnered with Robert D. Bone, also of Sacramento, on Captain Squire and saw the bay gelding win the $100,000 Turf Paradise Derby in his next start in February of that year.
Five months later, Captain Squire won his and Mullins’ first graded stakes with a neck victory in the Grade 2 Lazaro Barrera Memorial at Hollywood Park.
That would be just one of two graded stakes victories in Captain Squire’s 35-race career as he passed the million-dollar mark in earnings with a victory in the Grade 1 Ancient Title Breeders’ Cup during the Oak Tree meet at Santa Anita in October of 2005. It was his first race in more than 14 months after having knee surgery and it gave Bone and Diener their first Grade 1 score.
He also had international success, twice lighting the board in Grade 1 Dubai Golden Shaheen at Nad Al Sheba Racecourse. He was third behind winner Proud Tower Too in March of 2003 and fourth in the 2006 Dubai Golden Shaheen won by Our New Recruit.
A winner of nine career races with 10 seconds and six thirds, Captain Squire was by Flying Chevron out of Dolly’s Back, by At the Threshold and was bred in Florida by Jim DiMare’s J D Farms.
DiMare sold him through his Rising Hill as agent consignment at the 2000 Ocala Breeders’ Sales August Yearling Sale where Mike Lightner purchased him for a bargain $13,500.
Diener and Bone raced Captain Squire throughout his career, retiring him at age seven after the bay gelding was eased in an $80,000 optional claiming race at Hollywood Park in November of 2006.
“He…doesn’t need to run anymore,” Mullins said in an article published in BloodHorse. “The owners gave him to my wife. She’s going to make a dressage horse out of him.
“He was my first graded stakes winner when I probably had ten horses. He’s a special horse. He was the first real horse I ever had. He was a little tough, but he had plenty of personality. We knew how to deal with him.”
