Sunday Silence (Thoroughbred Legends, No. 12)

Rating:
Summary: Another winner from thoroughbred legends
Review: A fine treatment of 1989 Triple Crown hopeful. This volume contains a good number of photos and is overall a classy looking book, as are all of the Thoroughbred Legends series. The text does a great job of covering the rivalry between Sunday Silence and Belmont Stakes spoiler Easy Goer.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe the Best Book in the Legends Series
Review: I have read all 17 books currently available in the Thoroughbred Legends series and have been telling myself to write a review of the Sunday Silence volume as I believe it is the best in the series. The recent passing of this unique horse has finally given me an incentive to write about it.

The Sunday Silence book is probably the longest of the books dealing with a single horse (the Affirmed and Alydar book is longer, but is that way because it deals with the lives of both horses). Author Ray Paulick has thoroghly researched the life of Sunday Silence and has used interviews to tell a great tale about a horse nobody wanted who went on to win two-thirds of the Triple Crown, including a victory in what is arguably the greatest race of all time, the 1989 Preakness, where he went nose-to-nose with his arch-rival Easy Goer in an exciting stretch duel.

Sunday Silence's rags to riches story is told alongside the story of his breeder, Arthur Hancock, who was passed over in the succession of his father at the great Claiborne Farms (his younger brother was chosen instead), but who went on to develop his own farm successfully. Also intertwined is the story of his jockey Pat Valenzuela, a talented jockey whose career was later stunted by substance abuse (he is making a comeback and doing well, I understand).

The book also tells of Sunday Silence's breeding career in Japan, where he became a superstar sire and a nation's hero. Reading this part of the book might let you understand why his Japanese owners elected not to euthanize Sunday Silence when he came down with laminitis in August 2002, letting nature eventually take him on her own. He was loved so much in Japan, they obviously didn't want to let him go.

Many of the Legends books were written by people who obviously didn't do much but look at old newspaper and horse racing trade articles to write their stoies. Paulick made an effort, with interviews, and it shows. I believe this is the only book he has written in the series, but I hope to see more from him in future books. There are still many great horses who haven't been written about (Secretariat, Kelso, Count Fleet) who could use the Paulick treatment.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe the Best Book in the Legends Series
Review: I have read all 17 books currently available in the Thoroughbred Legends series and have been telling myself to write a review of the Sunday Silence volume as I believe it is the best in the series. The recent passing of this unique horse has finally given me an incentive to write about it.

The Sunday Silence book is probably the longest of the books dealing with a single horse (the Affirmed and Alydar book is longer, but is that way because it deals with the lives of both horses). Author Ray Paulick has thoroghly researched the life of Sunday Silence and has used interviews to tell a great tale about a horse nobody wanted who went on to win two-thirds of the Triple Crown, including a victory in what is arguably the greatest race of all time, the 1989 Preakness, where he went nose-to-nose with his arch-rival Easy Goer in an exciting stretch duel.

Sunday Silence's rags to riches story is told alongside the story of his breeder, Arthur Hancock, who was passed over in the succession of his father at the great Claiborne Farms (his younger brother was chosen instead), but who went on to develop his own farm successfully. Also intertwined is the story of his jockey Pat Valenzuela, a talented jockey whose career was later stunted by substance abuse (he is making a comeback and doing well, I understand).

The book also tells of Sunday Silence's breeding career in Japan, where he became a superstar sire and a nation's hero. Reading this part of the book might let you understand why his Japanese owners elected not to euthanize Sunday Silence when he came down with laminitis in August 2002, letting nature eventually take him on her own. He was loved so much in Japan, they obviously didn't want to let him go.

Many of the Legends books were written by people who obviously didn't do much but look at old newspaper and horse racing trade articles to write their stoies. Paulick made an effort, with interviews, and it shows. I believe this is the only book he has written in the series, but I hope to see more from him in future books. There are still many great horses who haven't been written about (Secretariat, Kelso, Count Fleet) who could use the Paulick treatment.

Rating:
Summary: Another GReat Rivalry Horse who defeated famous Easy Goer
Review: Sunday Silence went on to Japan and became a leading sire of the horses in that country.

However, his record speaks for itself on the racetrack !

What makes a horse special and famous is who he ran against, which races he won, and how fast he went.

During the campaign of Sunday Silence, a superhorse was also being raced on the east coast named Easy Goer.

Easy Goer would have been a secretariat in his time if not for Sunday Silence.

Both horses ran on opposite coasts, and it helped foster the east/west rivalry that we see in some years but not many.

Coming into the Kentucky Derby, everyone was talking about Easy Goer. He was exceptionally well bred, and he was huge in stature. He has destroyed fields in NY and the east on his way to Kentucky.

Sunday Silence had done well in california, but no one really thought of him as a real threat.

Well we had a Derby and a Preakness go to Sunday Silence and it looked as if we would have a Triple Crown sweep by him.

The large striding Easy Goer came home to the Belmont Stakes and despite the crowd now favoring Sunday Silence, everyone in the know and the art of handicapping knew Belmont Park was Easy Goer's home field.

Turning for home, Easy Goer had extra gears to handle the distance and surface, and he opened up daylight turning for home. It was a hard defeat for Silence and his connections who (if you read the book) had a rivalry with the connections of Easy Goer.

Well lets say it was 2-1 in favor o Sunday Silence, but everyone who loved Easy Goer, and that was a large audience of people, felt that Goer had stamped himself the better of the two.

We had a showdown that year in the B.Cup Classic, and get the book to find out who won !

It was dark and raining, and not a single person left the track on that day. This book covers the story, enjoy it it was well done.

Best Regards to all, MC - TheStickRules.Com

Rating:
Summary: Handsome is as handsome does
Review: Sunday Silence's story takes on a fairy-tale quality: the cow-hocked, sickly little black foal versus the royally-bred, strikingly beautiful bright chestnut Easy Goer, who became the darling of the Eastern press establishment. Easy Goer could do no wrong. Sunday Silence, racing out west, under the radar of the Eastern press, made no impression at all as a two-year-old.

While the paths of the now-three-year-old Sunday Silence and Easy Goer would not officially cross until the Kentucky Derby, ABC Sports telecast two of their derby prep races on April 8, 1989.

"Easy Goer was simply brilliant in his race, the Gotham Stakes from New York's Aqueduct racetrack....he [bounded] away from the field to win by thirteen lengths. His final time of 1:32 2/5 was just one-fifth of a second off the world record for a mile, set in 1968 by the great champion Dr. Fager."

Sunday Silence ran a good race, too, winning the Santa Anita Derby by eleven lengths and coming within three-fifths of a second of the stakes record set by Lucky Debonair in 1965.

Easy Goer's trainer, Shug McGaughey wasn't so much worried about the cow-hocked black's running style as he was about Sunday Silence's trainer: the ex-marine, hall-of-fame trainer, Charlie Wittingham, the Bald Eagle. "I sure wish somebody else besides Charlie Whittingham was training that horse," McGaughey said.

He was right to be worried. The Bald Eagle was a master at bringing a horse up to a classic race.

Easy Goer was the favorite to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, but Sunday Silence was all alone at the wire for the Derby. He went on to win the Preakness by a nose, and was finally made the favorite for the third race in the Triple Crown series: the Belmont. The bettors were wrong, again. Easy Goer was on his home track and he relished the mile-and-a-half distance, winning the Belmont by eight lengths. The two rivals would race together one more time in 1989 to determine who was going to be Horse of the Year.

Luckily, the Breeders' Cup races weren't held at Belmont that year, or things might have turned out differently. The Gulfstream track had relatively tight turns, favoring a nimble horse like Sunday Silence over the long-striding, slow-to-turn Easy Goer. Once again, Easy Goer was hammered down to 1-2 favoritism by the bettors (he was a beautiful horse). Once again, Sunday Silence outmaneuvered his rival on the track and won by a desperate neck.

Sunday Silence was voted Horse of the Year.

Both horses were expected to renew their rivalry as four-year-olds, but both sustained injuries and had to be retired to stud. Easy Goer was bedded down in the same stall at Claiborne where Secretariat had held court, and he attracted the cream of the regally bred mares. Unfortunately, he only produced four crops of foals before his premature death, with only three grade one winners among them.

On the other hand, no one was interested in breeding to a cow-hocked son of Halo, no matter how well he had run, so Arthur Hancock sold Sunday Silence to Zenya Yoshida of the Shadai Stables in Japan. Sunday Silence has been doing extremely well at stud in Japan, breeding champion after champion. This spring, a contingent of his yearlings sold for an average of more than $700,000 apiece in Australia.

Handsome is as handsome does, as my grandmother used to say.

Ray Paulick also tells the interesting story of how Arthur Hancock, who was written out of his father's will as owner of Claibourne Farm, picked himself back up and made his own Stone Farm an outstanding success.

Another story related to the success of Sunday Silence is that of his jockey Pat Valenzuela, a gifted athlete whose career was side-tracked on numerous occasions because of drugs. He is making what is hopefully his final comeback from drugs in 2002, and has already won a few stakes for the trainers who still put their trust in him.

Rating:
Summary: Handsome is as handsome does
Review: Sunday Silence's story takes on a fairy-tale quality: the cow-hocked, sickly little black foal versus the royally-bred, strikingly beautiful bright chestnut Easy Goer, who became the darling of the Eastern press establishment. Easy Goer could do no wrong. Sunday Silence, racing out west, under the radar of the Eastern press, made no impression at all as a two-year-old.

While the paths of the now-three-year-old Sunday Silence and Easy Goer would not officially cross until the Kentucky Derby, ABC Sports telecast two of their derby prep races on April 8, 1989.

"Easy Goer was simply brilliant in his race, the Gotham Stakes from New York's Aqueduct racetrack....he [bounded] away from the field to win by thirteen lengths. His final time of 1:32 2/5 was just one-fifth of a second off the world record for a mile, set in 1968 by the great champion Dr. Fager."

Sunday Silence ran a good race, too, winning the Santa Anita Derby by eleven lengths and coming within three-fifths of a second of the stakes record set by Lucky Debonair in 1965.

Easy Goer's trainer, Shug McGaughey wasn't so much worried about the cow-hocked black's running style as he was about Sunday Silence's trainer: the ex-marine, hall-of-fame trainer, Charlie Wittingham, the Bald Eagle. "I sure wish somebody else besides Charlie Whittingham was training that horse," McGaughey said.

He was right to be worried. The Bald Eagle was a master at bringing a horse up to a classic race.

Easy Goer was the favorite to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, but Sunday Silence was all alone at the wire for the Derby. He went on to win the Preakness by a nose, and was finally made the favorite for the third race in the Triple Crown series: the Belmont. The bettors were wrong, again. Easy Goer was on his home track and he relished the mile-and-a-half distance, winning the Belmont by eight lengths. The two rivals would race together one more time in 1989 to determine who was going to be Horse of the Year.

Luckily, the Breeders' Cup races weren't held at Belmont that year, or things might have turned out differently. The Gulfstream track had relatively tight turns, favoring a nimble horse like Sunday Silence over the long-striding, slow-to-turn Easy Goer. Once again, Easy Goer was hammered down to 1-2 favoritism by the bettors (he was a beautiful horse). Once again, Sunday Silence outmaneuvered his rival on the track and won by a desperate neck.

Sunday Silence was voted Horse of the Year.

Both horses were expected to renew their rivalry as four-year-olds, but both sustained injuries and had to be retired to stud. Easy Goer was bedded down in the same stall at Claiborne where Secretariat had held court, and he attracted the cream of the regally bred mares. Unfortunately, he only produced four crops of foals before his premature death, with only three grade one winners among them.

On the other hand, no one was interested in breeding to a cow-hocked son of Halo, no matter how well he had run, so Arthur Hancock sold Sunday Silence to Zenya Yoshida of the Shadai Stables in Japan. Sunday Silence has been doing extremely well at stud in Japan, breeding champion after champion. This spring, a contingent of his yearlings sold for an average of more than $700,000 apiece in Australia.

Handsome is as handsome does, as my grandmother used to say.

Ray Paulick also tells the interesting story of how Arthur Hancock, who was written out of his father's will as owner of Claibourne Farm, picked himself back up and made his own Stone Farm an outstanding success.

Another story related to the success of Sunday Silence is that of his jockey Pat Valenzuela, a gifted athlete whose career was side-tracked on numerous occasions because of drugs. He is making what is hopefully his final comeback from drugs in 2002, and has already won a few stakes for the trainers who still put their trust in him.