best non-winner of the triple crown

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afleet alex, buckpasser, classic sires, damascus, dr. fager, keiblog, kelso, native dancer, non-triple crown winners, point given, risen star, sire dominance, sire influence, spectacular bid, sunday silence, thoroughbred breeding in japan, tim tam, Triple Crown, zenya yoshida

There’s been a bit of chat on the interwebs and hinterblogs about who was the best colt not to win the Triple Crown. Most of the consideration has been on Spectacular Bid, Point Given, Afleet Alex, and to a lesser extent (if you can believe it) Sunday Silence.

All were smacking good racehorses, as were Risen Star, Tim Tam, Damascus, Native Dancer, and a few others who never made the Triple like Buckpasser, Dr Fager, and Kelso. Yet we can argue till we faint dead away, and nobody can prove which was the absolute best. But I can, however, tell you which was the best at stud (although Afleet Alex has many chapters left to write): Sunday Silence.

The winner of two-thirds of the Triple Crown, the BC Classic, and Horse of the Year, Sunday Silence was much better than that when put to stud in Japan as the supreme legacy of the great breeder Zenya Yoshida.

Simply put, Sunday Silence was the best stallion in the history of Thoroughbred breeding in Japan, and he became known as one of the best in the world, although few of his offspring left the most lucrative racing and breeding program in the world.

Although lost relatively young, Sunday Silence still rules the breeding world in Japan. As evidence of the stallion’s absolute dominance, Keiblog notes: “every single horse in [tomorrow’s Japan Derby] field is related to Sunday Silence. 16 are by stallions whose sire is Sunday Silence. Cresco Grand and Belshazzar have Sunday Silence as their broodmare sire.”

Amazing.

There are several reasons for Sunday Silence’s success in Japan, not least being that his physique and character suited their racing program so well. But don’t let anyone tell you it was because he was playing in a sandlot. The Japanese have world-class racing, and their stock races impressively when taken into other environments.

The old black pest* was simply the best.

*(I was a fan of Easy Goer)

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mud and roses

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churchill downs, dust commander, hill prince, horse of the year, kelso, Kentucky Derby, kentucky weather, middleground, mr trouble, muddy racetracks, predictability and unpredictability, sunglow, sword dancer, your host

In Kentucky in the spring, sometimes it rains. When the clouds dark tumult yields rain like we have seen in the past 12 hours, there is not much a track crew can do. Churchill Downs becomes a strange, muddy place, even on the first Saturday in May.

And sometimes the results in the Kentucky Derby are peculiar. While wondering about the additional variable of an off track, I also thought: “The results in the Derby are frequently not what I expect. So maybe mud doesn’t have that much to do with it.”

Among the less predictable outcomes were the 1970 running of the Derby, won by our little friend Dust Commander, and the 1994 running, won by Go for Gin.

But 60 years ago, they had squirrely weather at the Downs, and the order of finish in the Derby was: Middleground, Hill Prince, Mr. Trouble, Sunglow, with Your Host 9th as the favorite over Hill Prince. The first two finishers were the top classic colts of their crop, and Hill Prince (bred by Christopher Chenery and racing in his famous Meadow Stable silks) won Horse of the Year after an exciting year of racing.

At stud, the top two had some good days, but none of the top four had a better day than when Sunglow sired Horse of the Year Sword Dancer (1959). The colt who ran 9th, fast and courageous Your Host, had the greatest day of all: He sired Kelso, who was Horse of the Year five times.

You just never know where the great ones will come from.

For the record, Sword Dancer was second in the 1959 Derby when Bill Shoemaker rode one of best races to get Tomy Lee home first, and Kelso didn’t make it to the classics, yet became Horse of the Year with definitive victories through the second half of the year.