Champion Silver Charm was settling in well at Old Friends Farm Dec. 2 following a long journey home to Kentucky from Japan.

The 1997 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner, a 20-year-old son of Silver Buck—Bonnie's Poker, by Poker, greeted fans at Old Friends Farm in Georgetown, Kentucky, one day after walking off the horse van at the equine retirement facility. He was pensioned from stud duties this season and returned to Old Friends from the Japan Bloodhorse Breeders' Association (JBBA) Shizunai Stallion Station, where he stood since 2005.

Sandy Hatfield, stallion manager for Three Chimneys Farm, held the shank as a large group saluted the bright-eyed champion on a foggy afternoon. Camera shutters clicked, and outside the paddock fence a woman held up a sign that simply read: "Welcome Home Silver Charm."

After spending three weeks in quarantine in Japan, Silver Charm left that country the last week of November on an 18-hour flight with a layover in Anchorage, Alaska, and from there traveled to Chicago, where he was quarantined four days at Arlington International Racecourse, in Arlington Heights, Illinois