Son of Sunday Silence becomes America's fastest horse
By Brian Russell - 1 August 2005
“as luck would have it, the foal out of one of the most likely mares to produce a good horse to Sunday Silence, the Bletchingly sprint star Wrap Around, was not raced. Sunday Knight, a typical Sunday Silence in type, is now proving very popular with breeders at Heather Belle Pascoe’s Plaintree Farms near Toowoomba..”
In late July Keep the Faith, a horse bred by the Arrowfield Stud at Scone following a mating in Japan of a grand-daughter of Danzig in Duelling Girl and their phenomenal sire Sunday Silence, ran the fastest six furlongs (about 1200m) in the history of American racing in winning an event on grass at New York’s famous Belmont Park in a time of 1:7.31 seconds.
It was an effort that should not be surprising for in a checked racing career in Australia prior to heading off overseas, Keep the Faith on his day demonstrated awesome speed. He ran nine times here for four wins, his only outing at two – scored by four lengths at Adelaide’s Cheltenham – and three in succession at three, appearances as an odds on favourite at Victoria Park (won by 5.75 lengths), Morphettville (by 7.0 lengths) and Caulfield (by 2.75 lengths).
His record may have been even better here if his program had been restricted to sprint racing. Admittedly he managed fourth placing as favourite in the Canterbury Guineas but he was 6.9 lengths behind the winner.
Keep the Faith has been raced in both Australia and America by Sheikh Mohammed’s international Darley organisation after they purchased him for $1.2million out of the Arrowfield consignment to the 2002 Australia Easter Yearling Sale in Sydney.
He was one of seven foals bred by Arrowfield from mares they put to Sunday Silence to northern hemisphere time in Japan in 1999 and brought back to Australia for foaling. This was in a unique program that saw them put a small number of mares to this great sire in each of four seasons resulting in 25 live foals.
Another of these became Sunday Joy, the winner of the AJC Oaks and third in the Rosehill Guineas. However, as luck would have it, the foal out of one of the most likely mares to produce a good horse that Arrowfield put to Sunday Silence, the Bletchingly sprint star Wrap Around, ran into problems and was not raced. The foal is Sunday Knight, a typical Sunday Silence type, and he is now proving very popular with breeders at Heather Belle Pascoe’s Plaintree Farms Stud near Toowoomba where he is coming up to his third season..
The American record setting Keep the Faith’s dam Duelling Girl is a half-sister by Dayjur, the sire of Hayil, the English Group1 winning two-year-old standing at the Lyndhurst Stud, Warwick, to Faithful Son, the horse which ended up seventh place in the1998 Melbourne Cup after compounding from a huge lead entering the straight.
The Arrowfield paddocks which produced Keep the Faith were also the breeding grounds for Zodiac Miss, an Ahonoora filly who following quality efforts here at two went to stud in America where she became the dam of their greatest ever money earning female, Azeri. She was named champion female in each of three years and Horse of the Year in one of them.