Local Sunday Silence sire's Rockhampton rocket
Brian Russell - Bloodstock Media Service - 28 November 2007
ROCKHAMPTON, the central Queensland coast historic stronghold of racing, could have a new rocket in the striking looking near black Our Gold Night, the winner by a minute when a hot favourite on the local track on Saturday. Admittedly, it was the first win for the first crop Sunday Knight 3-year-old filly in five starts, but the manner in which she dominated in scoring by four lengths suggested bigger success is ahead.
Our Gold Night is a replicca of her sire Sunday Knight, one of the small number of horses bred by the John Messara guided Arrowfield stud from a pioneering project that saw Australian owned mares mated to the now deceased giant of Japanese breeding, Sunday Silence, to southern hemisphere time in Japan.
Two of the results have been Sunday Joy, a winner of the AJC Australian Oaks, and Keep the Faith, a winner in Melbourne and Adelaide and also in three American starts successful in1200m event in national turf record time of 1:6.8 at New York’s Belmont Park. He stands at Adam Sangster’s Swettenham Stud at Nagambie in Victoria and had 131 mares in his first season in 2006.
So far two of the Australian bred Sunday Silence sons, Sunday Knight and Any Given Sunday, have had runners. Both sires were unraced but both, not surprisingly as their dams were chosen for the Sunday Silence matings, have pedigrees packed with genetic excellence.
Any Given Sunday is from a Nureyev mare who is a three-quarter sister to three stakes winners, including American champion sprinter Lit De Justice, and Sunday Knight is a half-brother to dam of a leading Australian filly, Fashions Afield, and from a Bletchingly Group 1 sprint winner, Wrap Around.
The death of Any Given Sunday after only one small book, resulting in nine named foals, current 3-year-olds, at the Mountmellick Stud at Tallarook in Victoria has proved a big loss. That crop includes Riva San, a typical of the breed near black filly who could become a Group 1 winner. She has won the Listed Morphettville Guineas, also been successful at Flemington and on this track on November 3 a short neck second in the Group 2 Wakeful Stakes and on November 8 seventh in Victoria Oaks.
One of the biggest and most imposing looking of the Australian bred Sunday Silence products, the 16.2 hands Sunday Knight, stands by arrangement with the Arrowfield stud at Heather and David Pascoe’s young quality Plaintree Farms Stud near Toowoomba, Queensland on a fee of $4,400.
Despite his impeccable breeding, his unraced status and his appearance as a foundation sire at Plaintree has meant that his first crop has had very limited exposure. Besides Our Gold Night, however, it also includes Punch Up (three starts at the Gold Coast for two wins, one of them by 2.3 lengths) and Knight in Tights (third at Moonee Valley in the Dual Choice Plate).
It says a lot for the sire and the stud management that Sunday Knight’s fertility for 2004 (his second season), 2005 and 2006 has been 100%, 97.1% and 91.7%. He could have some eye-catching second crop juveniles about when Queensland racing recovers from the equine influenza epidemic.