Grade 2 winner Forest Camp has been retired and arrived at Mr. and Mrs. Brereton Jones's Airdrie Stud near Midway, Kentucky, on Monday to begin preparations for the 2002 season.The son of Deputy Minister out of La Paz, by Hold Your Peace, was purchased privately by Brereton Jones and will stand his first season for $10,000. Purchase price was not disclosed.

"I think he'll be very well received," Jones said. "He was a brilliant two-year-old and people do look for that. He's by a top sire and a sire of sires in Deputy Minister. He's out of a multiple stakes winning mare, who is by Hold Your Peace, so it's breeding very similar to French Deputy, who is doing so well."

"If you study the last 50 years of sires, the horses that are brilliant two-year-olds that are by top sires, proven sires of sires, seem to have the best chance at sire success," Jones said. "He's a high-quality horse and we've got him at the right price. When people see him they'll realize they have to breed to him."

Bred in Kentucky by Twin Creeks Farm, Forest Camp won four of 11 career starts with a pair of seconds for $339,984 in earnings.

Campaigned by Aaron and Marie Jones, Forest Camp was one of the country's leading two-year-olds in 1999. He defeated a field that included Grade 1 winners Dixie Union, Captain Steve, and Commendable when he posted a 5 ½-length score in the Del Mar Futurity (G2) in just his second career start.

Forest Camp also finished second in the Norfolk Stakes (G2) at Santa Anita Park and was sixth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) at Gulfstream Park.

During a three-year-old campaign abbreviated by a leg infection, Forest Camp won the Pirate's Bounty Handicap at Del Mar and finished second in the San Miguel Stakes (G3) at Santa Anita.

Forest Camp won one of four starts in 2001 and finished fifth in the Vernon O. Underwood Stakes (G3) on December 2 in his final career start.

Purchased by Aaron Jones for $675,000 at the 1998 Keeneland July selected yearling sale, Forest Camp is one of four winners from four foals to race out of La Paz, a multiple stakes winner who earned $175,431 during her career. La Paz is also a half sister to stakes winners Classy Sheikh, Trail Class, and My Treat.—Tom Law