Trainer D. Wayne Lukas acquired Capote for $800,000 at the 1985 Keeneland July yearling sale for the partnership of Barry A. Beal, Lloyd R. French, Jr. and prominent horseman Eugene V. Klein.
Ridden by Laffit Pincay, Jr., Capote took the lead early in the race and held it throughout to win by 1¼ lengths.
Capote's performances in 1986 earned him U.S. Champion 2-Yr-Old Colt honors, and he went into the 1987 racing season as the winter book favorite for the 1987 Kentucky Derby.
Retired to stud duty, from 1989 through to the end of 1991, Capote stood at the famed Calumet Farm, which had purchased a fifty percent interest in him.
The bankruptcy of Calumet resulted in Morven Stud of Charlottesville, Virginia, eventually acquiring the fifty percent share as an equal partner with Capote's original owners.