Multiple stakes winner Captain Countdown has been retired by owner Gearald Farris and will enter stud in 2003 at Hamton Farm near Mont Alba, Texas. The six-year-old son of Relaunch will stand his first season for $1,000. Captain Countdown won 11 of 35 career starts, with six seconds and five thirds, and earned $384,155. He won six stakes events during his career and placed in 11 others.

Captain Countdown enjoyed his best season in 2001 when he won four of eight starts, including the Bob Johnson Memorial Stakes and Premiere Stakes at Lone Star Park and the Sam Houston Sprint Handicap and Jersey Village Stakes at Sam Houston Race Park. Captain Countdown also won the 2000 Silver Bullet Centennial Handicap at Retama Park and successfully defended his title in this year's Jersey Village Stakes at Sam Houston.

Bred in Texas by Farris, Captain Countdown is out of the multiple stakes-winning Really Cooking mare Bearly Cooking, and is a half brother to stakes-placed winner Eccentric Lady.—Tom Law