I cannot dance around this topic anymore, we need to talk about THE most important horse of Japanese Horseracing history.
We’re going to have to go to America briefly for this, though.
The American horseracing scene is sadly beyond the scope of what I tend to investigate for this blog, but even before getting into Uma Musume, the name “Kentucky Derby” was one I was familiar with.
“The most exciting two minutes in sports”, “The race for the roses”, “The most important race for 3 year old horses”. Whichever name you want to pick conveys the same end point: It’s a big deal.
The Kentucky Derby is also the first race of the American Triple Crown, followed by the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes. So while what I’ve read paints it as roughly equivalent to the Nihon Derby in stature, its placement is more like the Satsuki Sho.
Our story starts in a Kentucky farm by the name of Stone Farm, owned by Arthur Hancock III. Where an attempt was made to breed the mare Wishing Well with the stallion Halo. And the fact that Wishing Well was able to give birth was a bit of a miracle.
Her first offspring was killed by a lighting before debut, the second attempt resulted in twin miscarriages, and the third was through artificial insemination that resulted in nothing. When she was finally able to give birth, the resulting creature had a gray-ish coat, long legs and slim body.
The calf that would be Sunday Silence was born.
On top of being very squalid, the calf had its hind legs cross so badly they almost touched. Ted Kiefer (the advisor of Wishing Well’s owner) outright told Arthur Hancock III to “take that black beast elsewhere”, since he had never seen such a repellent calf. And while Arthur was optimistic about the horse and even thought him capable of winning the Kentucky Derby, Kiefer commented that that creature would only get the roses on its grave.
The hopes were set and a name had to be picked though. By chance, a Maryland couple had sent the farm a list of names for horses “that would win the Kentucky Derby”. Sunday Silence was a reference to the silence in a sunday’s mass and was picked. It also reminded Hancock of the song Sunday Morning Coming Down by Kris Kristofferson.
Sunday Silence‘s life seemed like it would end really early though. He caught a really strong virus and had a strong diarrhea that required tons and tons of fluids to be adminestered. It was such a bad situation that Carl Morrison, the veterinarian in charge of him, outright ragequit, saying it was a lost cause and that horse was dead.
And if it was any other horse that might’ve been true.
But this wasn’t a normal horse.
He wasn’t gonna let the insults thrown his way go unanswered, he wasn’t going to be just another Wishing Well piece that died. At least the first one died by lightning, was he going to allow himself to die shitting himself to death?
Naohiro Goda, a horse racing columnist, put it best:
“What drove him was anger. His anger at his own destiny, which had forced him into misfortune, turned into a crimson flame that enveloped his whole body and was lashed out at those who stood in front of him.”
His veterinarian gave up on him, he was taken for dead… but Sunday Silence remained.
The next year, Hancock wanted to sell Sunday Silence in the Keeneland July Sale, but he was so ugly that he was put in the general category, where he was sold for 10.000 USD, but feeling like it was too little, Hancock bought him back for 17.000 USD.
When he reported this back to Tom Tilshom (the owner of Wishing Well), the result was that basically Sunday Silence was Hancock’s full property now since he didn’t intend on owning the black creature.
The next year Hancock tried to sell him in California, but when his price of 50.000 USD wasn’t met, he ended up buying him again. And moreover, no other horse racing official was interested in him at all.
Hancock tried to sell him… but Sunday Silence remained.
Then, after the California sale, while being transported back, the truck’s driver suffered a heart attack and crashed. All the horses in the cargo died in the process…
…except Sunday Silence, who only had a few bruises.
Destiny tried to kill him… but he remained.
The driver survived, by the way. He remained too.
At this point, between all the repurchases, the ownership of Sunday Silence was divided amongst Hancock, trainer Charles “Charlie” Wittingham, Hancock’s friend Paul Sullivan, and physician Ernest Gaillard.
Wittingham would manage Sunday Silence, and for once Hancock found someone else that saw what he saw in the cursed creature. Jockey Pat Valenzuela did too, after Sunday Silence’s first victory in the San Felipe Handicap he saw the potential of Sunday Silence as a Kentucky Derby winner… perhaps not the favorite, but definietly top five.
“We won’t know how fit he is for the race until the Santa Anita Derby” they said, and as if taking it as a challenge, Sunday Silence won the Santa Anita Derby by 11 LENGTHS.
But this creature can’t have it easy, can it? The day before the Kentucky Derby there was 2cm of rain resulting in the worst racing conditions in 22 years, and that’s not even counting the fact that it was 6°C at the time of the race.
But he won against favorite Easy Goer by one and a half lengths.
Sunday Silence had won the roses, and he wasn’t dead yet.
With this, they moved onto the next stage of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes… but of course things had to be rough, starting with an injury that prevented Sunday Silence from training for most of the time between races, and him growing angry at all the tourists and such making it to the horse stalls.
This made them close off the stalls so that The Creature wouldn’t get angrier than usual, but this combined with the shockingly fast recovery of his leg made many suspect that maybe the leg was healed with illegal substances behind the closed doors (God, that’s so American…).
Not only that but he was facing against Easy Goer again, who was the favorite again over him.
The race was a tough one too, with Easy Goer blocking Sunday Silence for most of it, and when Sunday Silence finally caught up he actually tried to bite Easy Goer WHILE RUNNING.
In the end, after a LONG 15 second confrontation and a really close finish line, Sunday Silence won. He was 2 for 3 in the Triple Crown.
The final step was the Belmont Stakes, and this was another fight against Easy Goer, but surprisingly, Sunday Silence was the most favorite this time. It was a heated race that everyone was looking forward to… and Sunday Silence finally lost to Easy Goer.
But by this time, the opinion on him had changed, he was no longer some malformed black creature, but a black beast to be feared.
Their next goal was the Breeder’s Cup Classic, so they aimed for the Swaps Stakes. Sunday Silenece seemed to not be all too well but he was deemed fit to run closer to the race. Sunday Silence lost this one, but according to Naohiro Goda (from the really metal quote above) it seemed to be more of a technical thing on the Jockey’s side.
After this loss, they gave Sunday Silence time to recover and faced in the Super Derby, where they won by six lengths. The lead was of ten lengths at one point, but Jockey Pat Valenzuela loosened the reins near the goal, making the lead less.
Speaking of him, Jockey Pat Valenzuela was suspended 60 days for testing positive for cocaine use (GOD this is the most American-ass post I’ve written in this blog) prompting a change of Jockey.
Tensions were building though, because the most favorite for the Breeder’s Cup was none other than Easy Goer. This was their final showdown.
And Sunday Silence won, taking revenge for the Belmont Stakes.
THIS WAS ALL IN THE SAME YEAR IN 1989 BY THE WAY, SUNDAY SILENCE IS STILL A 3 YEAR OLD HORSE BY THIS POINT.
Wittingham (the manager if you’ll remember) insisted that Sunday Silence only grew stronger with time so he continued plans to race by the next year (1990)… so of course, Sunday Silence injured his leg multiple times to the point that he had to have surgery to remove bone fragments after the leg healed because this fucker survived a car crash, he’s not gonna be taken down by no leg injury, bitch.
Sunday Silence eventually returned to the Californian Stakes in June and won by three quarters of length in difference… though this was reportedly so that he wouldn’t get handicap weights in future races (so… American).
By the way, the Jockey they changed to for the Breeder’s Cup, Chris McCarron, had to skip this race because he fell off a horse in a different race so Pat Valenzuela was back on the saddle, his cocaine suspension finally lifted.
The next race was the Hollywood Gold Cup, but Sunday Silence lost in second place in that one. Valenzuela and Whittingham cited the handicap weight as a reason, and Naohiro Goda cited Valenzuela using the whip too much.
Sunday Silence was invited to the Arlington Challenge Cup, hoping for one last special rematch against Easy Goer… but Easy Goer had retired from racing that July due to injuries and funnily enough, as if spiteful even about this, Sunday Silence finally retired also from a leg injury.
After retirement, Hancock planned to syndicate Sunday Silence for 10.000.000 USD (250.000 per share x 40 shares). Alas, for all its accolades, Sunday Silence’s bloodline didn’t exactly have the best evaluation, and that’s without counting how in American breeding circles, if a horse doesn’t have a good evaluation at age 2, it’s really hard for it to improve later.
Enter stage left: Zenya Yoshida of Shadai Farm.
Teruya Yoshida, Zenya’s son (and the one who purchased Northern Taste) worked for a time as the manager of Fontainebleau Farm, a farm that was close to Claybourne Farm, which was owned by Hancock’s father and it’s through this connection that Teruya became friends with Hancock. Likewise, through this connection Zenya became friends with Whittingham.
Early in 1990 (the year AFTER that first batch of crazy races) Zenya had bought half of Hancock’s shares in Sunday Silence, making him owner of one quarter of the stakes in the horse. And now that he was looking for buyers, Zenya offered to buy Sunday Silence off Hancock.
Between the incoming recession, debts from expanding the farm, their friendship, AND knowing of how the success of Northern Taste was starting to show more and more at this stage, Hancock decided to part with The Creature for 11 million USD (about 1.65 billion yen at the time, that’s billion with a B).
And this single transaction, this single friendship, this single choice would COMPLETELY reshape Japanese horseracing forever. So much so that it’s better to tackle it separately.
For you see…
Even after death.
Sunday Silence remains.