sad passing of another CHAMPION

Just heard the news of the demise of my namesake...another Champion gone...God Bless...rest in peace CHAMP

Gato del Sol, the winner of the 1982 Kentucky Derby, was euthanized on Tuesday at Stone Farm outside of Paris, Ky., according to a report on the Blood-Horse website. Gato del Sol was 28 and the oldest Kentucky Derby winner.

"He was getting old, and he started to go downhill," Arthur Hancock, the owner of Stone Farm and a co-breeder of the gray horse, told the Blood-Horse. "It was just time, and we figured it was the humane thing to do."

Officials reached at Stone Farm late on Wednesday declined to comment. Both Hancock and his wife, Staci, could not be reached.

Gato del Sol was retired to stud at the end of his 6-year-old year to Stone Farm, where he was foaled. The horse was bred by Hancock and Leone J. Peters, and was the first horse bred by a Hancock family member to win the Derby. Arthur Hancock is a member of the fourth generation of Hancocks to breed horses.

Trained by Eddie Gregson in California, Gato del Sol won the 1982 Kentucky Derby at odds of 21-1. In a widely unpopular move in Maryland, Gregson decided to skip the Preakness Stakes, leading the Pimlico Race Course general manager, Chick Lang, to put a goat in the stall reserved for the Kentucky Derby winner. Gato del Sol did run in the Belmont Stakes, but he was beaten in the race by Conquistador Cielo.

When he retired to Stone Farm, Gato del Sol had won 7 of 39 starts and earned $1,340,107.

Gato del Sol did not have a particularly successful stud career, and in 1993 he was sold to a farm in Germany, though his career as a stallion did not improve in Europe. In 1999, Stone Farm re-acquired the horse after Staci Hancock learned that Exceller, a top handicap horse who had been sold to stud in Japan, had been killed in a Swedish slaughterhouse.

The Hancocks paid $5,500 to buy the horse, and spent $12,500 to ship him back to Stone Farm.