Timber Country, a bay horse with three white socks and a small nose snip, was born April 12, 1992, in Kentucky.
Sent East, Timber Country won the Grade I Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, while running on the lead setting the pace.
Going into the Kentucky Derby the colt was winless in all three of his 1995 starts and was up against a field that included strong competition such as Tejano Run, who had finished third to Timber Country in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile; Thunder Gulch, who was also trained by D. Wayne Lukas and who had won that spring's Fountain of Youth Stakes and Florida Derby; Talkin Man, the Canadian Two-Year-Old Champion coming off an impressive win in the Wood Memorial Stakes; plus the future Hall of Fame filly Serena's Song, who was owned by Robert and Beverly Lewis, one of Timber Country's owners.
Drawing the difficult post position seventeen in the Kentucky Derby's nineteen-horse field, Timber Country was among the trailers for most of the race.
A horse who liked to come from behind (although he won on the lead setting the pace in the 1994 Champagne Stakes), entering the homestretch he was still only in tenth place and, bunched between a congestion of challengers, lost time when he had to swing to the outside to find some running room.
In the stretch drive jockey Pat Day and Timber County made a late move to get between horses and came on strongly enough to finish third behind runner-up Tejano Run and winner Thunder Gulch.
Made the heavy favorite to win the third and final leg of the Triple Crown, Timber Country had to be withdrawn from the Belmont Stakes on the day before the race as a result of a high fever from a virus that saw his temperature nearing 103 degrees.
[1] Retired to stud duty, Timber Country was first sent Shadai Farm, a breeding operation located in Hokkaido, Japan, owned by brothers Teruya and Katsumi Yoshida.
In 2001, Timber Country stood in Dubai, then was returned to Japan, this time standing at Lex Stud in Hokkaido, where he remained.