Some thoughts from Arthur Hancock, breeder of Sunday Silence

[Justpat]

http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/a-kentucky-bluegrass-lesson/#more-128


"The Goddess of History is a stern lady and it is wise to heed her. Flout her at your own risk."



I love this man. He has been considered the renegade of his family for his beliefs about how
to raise a good horse, but he has been extremely successful while his brother, the owner of
Claiborne Farm, a leading commercial breeder has not been been able to duplicate his success.

[two gun sid]

1. Thanks for that...

Somewhere on this computer I have an .mp3 of Arthur Hancock playing and singing his song "Here Comes Sunday Silence Again".

Good article by the way.

[Justpat]

2. It is a good piece.

Some in the KY breeding world won't like it. What has changed, in my opinion, is the racing worlds
concept of greatness. Previously it was racing soundness and durability. With the advent of the
yearling and two year old sales and the astounding prices of the youngsters - the concept of the
best was the horse that brought the biggest price.

There have so many high priced donkeys that they are too many to count.

The latest, the 16 million loser named The Green Monkey, was purchased by the Irish
at the two year old in training sale in FL and turned out to be so slow he couldn't run
on dirt, grass or polytrack. So naturally, he was recently retired to stud in FL. God help us.

[northzax]

3. it's a crap shoot buying yearlings for the Derby, right?

Only one person, if I recall correctly, has owned two derby winners? Take a guy like sheik Muhammad, one of the richest people alive, who has spent how much over 19 years trying to win the derby? (his announced goal at the time) insane amounts, upwards of two hundred million, and has only two entrants to his name?

[Justpat]

4. There are people who go to the sales for clients looking for a derby winner

and they measure hearts and study conformation. But you are right that even with
this ability to see which horse has a heart like Secretariat and conformation like Slew,
it is the will to win and the indefinable class of the animal that makes a great one.

This past Sept., I was paid a good bit of money to go look at horses for someone at the
yearling sale. I was there for fifteen days and looked at thousands of horses.
Out of all those horses, there were probably ten or twelve that I would have bought
for myself. The rest had hearts the size of a walnut, or were crooked, or looked
about as athletic as the pillsbury dough boy. This person had two horses in this years
derby and they ran up the track. (I didn't pick out this years bunch). He spent over
ten million looking for his derby horse and came up empty. Maybe next year.

And yes, the Sheiks have spent hundreds of millions chasing the derby and all for
nothing - yet. For the last several decades they have purchased our best bloodlines
and taken them out of the country - a loss to us forever. I think maybe this is one
more reason why our horses are not so sturdy anymore. All the better bloodlines have
gone to Saudi Arabia, Japan or Europe.

[aaronbees]

5. I've really enjoyed reading the Times' "The Rail"

And this was a wonderful post by Mr. Hancock. (Though I think I disagree with him about fillys vs. the boys. Was that him singing that song? Lovely!)

I think it was quite a shame Sunday Silence didn't stay in the U.S. As we could see in his breeding record in Japan, Sunday Silence was a tremendous sire there and would've gone some way, I think, to help some of the problems now faced in the breeding industry if he'd stayed here in the U.S. I don't remember why he wasn't popular as a prospective sire here after he retired - do you know? (Thanks for this post, and your other posts that last couple days on this subject of breeding and other issues associated with racing today.)

[Justpat]

7. If I remember correctly, Sunday Silence was not too popular with

breeders here when he retired because he had crooked knees. I think people felt
his offspring would be sounder racing on turf overseas which turned out to be the
case. He was a real warrior as a race horse, but not correct.

I'll ask some friends in the breeding end of it and see if that is right.

[two gun sid]

8. Hocks. He was cow-hocked....

they almost hit when he walked. I'm sure that's what it was. He had a heart like a lion though. Went to Japan and became a cultural icon and the best sire in Asian racing.

[two gun sid]

9. I shot my mouth off...

he had bad looking hocks but, I don't know that's what turned breeders off. Sorry, OB.

[Justpat]

10. So did I.

My husband says he talked to Mr. Hancock at Saratoga after he sold the horse and
asked him why he did it. Mr. Hancock said that when SS was retired, he sent out
letters to breeder and farms asking if they wanted to be part of the syndicate. He
received one reply. So when the Japanese came along with an offer, he had to take
it. He is a commercial breeder and had bills to pay so he took the money.

So I don't know what the reason was that no one liked him. But Mr. Hancock was still
not part of the KY breeding clique. He was always a maverick and did his own thing.

[bread_and_roses]

6. Thanks, OB, for that link. There are several other good articles

that you can linkk to on the right - I thought "Are Things Rosier In Europe" particularly interesting.