Why Japan Keeps Humiliating America's Best Horses

Kentucky wouldn't pay ten thousand dollars for him. Japan built a racing empire on his blood, and American racing is still paying for that mistake. This is the story of Sunday Silence. He was a dark colt with crooked hind legs, rejected at the Keeneland yearling sale and bought back by his own breeder, Arthur Hancock III. He was rejected again at a California sale. Before he ever raced, he survived an illness that nearly killed him and a crash that overturned his horse van on the highway. Under Hall of Fame trainer Charlie Whittingham, the colt nobody wanted became a fierce racehorse. He took on Easy Goer, the champion of the East, in one of the greatest rivalries in horse racing history: the 1989 Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont Stakes and the Breeders' Cup Classic. Then Kentucky turned him away a third time. Zenya Yoshida of Shadai Farm bought him and took him to Hokkaido. There Sunday Silence became Japan's leading sire and started a bloodline that runs through Deep Impact, Orfevre, Kitasan Black, Equinox and Forever Young. We follow that bloodline from the Japan Cup to the Breeders' Cup at Del Mar. Along the way we show why Japanese horses keep beating America's best on American dirt and turf. Subscribe to Hoofed for more stories about the horses, rivalries and dynasties that shaped racing. #SundaySilence #HorseRacing #JapaneseRacing