Another fast horse by Aust. bred son of Sunday Silence
Brian Russell - Bloodstock Media Service - 12 December 2007
ANOTHER fast horse by one of the colts bred by the John Messara operated Arrowfield Stud in a pioneer program that saw the restrictive Japanese permit a small number of Australian mares to be mated to southern hemisphere time to their now deceased sire giant Sunday Silence was unleashed at Mount Barker in South Australia on Tuesday.
Making his debut, he is the Queensland bred J.L. Chilcott trained Sunday Knight 3-year-old black gelding Sundays Session and he exploded to a three lengths win in an 1100m maiden. He is another bargain from the Magic Millions Gold Coast, selling as a weanling for only $7,000 at their 2005 National sale.
It was a sale at which his mother, Spirit of Venus, was also sold for a modest price. Carrying a brother to Sundays Session, she went for $6,500.
Bred at the Barnes family’s historic Canning Downs Stud in the Warwick district, Spirit of Venus is a winner by the spectacular sire Celestial Dancer and from Even Bet, a Brisbane winner from a daughter of one of the greatest gallopers bred on Canning Downs, Tails. He won 23 races, including the Queensland Derby, Doomben Cup and two renewals of the AJC Metropolitan, and placed in the Cox Plate, Brisbane Cup and Melbourne Cup.
Sundays Session is the second winner in just over a fortnight to indicate that mare owners and horse buyers should be evaluating higher the progeny of Sunday Knight, a resident on behalf of Arrowfield at Heather and David Pascoe’s up and coming young Toowoomba district stud, Plaintree Farms.
The other to show that Sunday Knight can be a source of very speedy performers is Our Gold Knight and he was called as ‘a winner by a minute’ when he rocketed to victory by four lengths at Rockhampton on November 24.
Sundays Session and Our Gold Knight are in a restricted first crop by Sunday Knight, sharing this distinction also with Punch Up (won by 2.3 lengths at the Gold Coast) and Knight in Tights (third at Moonee Valley in the Dual Choice Plate).
A big, bold looking near black stallion who generally stamps his stock, Sunday Knight did not get a chance to live up to his impeccable bloodlines at the races because of injury, being retired at four as a foundation sire at Plaintree Farms. He is a half-brother by Sunday Silence to the dam of the Redoute’s Choice champion Fashions Afield and is from the magnificent Bletchingly race filly Wrap Around, a winner of seven sprints, including the MVRC William Reid Stakes, second in the MVRC Manikato Stakes and third in the Caulfield Futurity Stakes and VRC Lightning Stakes.
Sunday Knight is one of the first two of the Australian bred sons of Sunday Silence to have runners, the other being Any Given Sunday. Also unraced, he died after use over one small book at the Mountmellick Stud at Tallarook in Victoria, but left some talented performers, including Riva San, a winner of the Morphettville Guineas and at Flemington a short neck second in the Wakeful Stakes and seventh in the Victoria Oaks.
The southern hemisphere breeding program using Sunday Silence also produced the spectacularly fast Keep the Faith, an exciting sire prospect who looked after 131 mares in his first season, 2006, at Adam Sangster’s Swettenham Stud, formerly Collingrove, at Nagambie in Victoria.
Following nine starts in Australia, including a win in the Schweppes Cup by 2.8 lengths at Caulfield, and three successes in Adelaide by margins of 3.9 lengths, 5.7 lengths and 6.9 lengths, he went to America for three outings. In one of these, an appearance at New York’s Belmont Park, he created a sensation in winning over six furlongs (1200m) in new American record turf track time of 1:06.8.