15 years ago today

[Calzone Lord]

This is the performance by Silence Suzuka that really makes you wonder if any turf horse, from anywhere, in history could have beat him on this day:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf-QxcJfFyo


To me, this is one of the greatest turf performances ever, because it was a case of a horse almost sprinting 10 furlongs. Basically going as fast as he can, for as far as he can, and easily seeing out the trip.

I looked through stuff on an old desktop computer and was able to find the PP's of the 2nd and 3rd place finishers from that race.

The 2nd place finisher Midnight Bet had won four races in a row coming into the race... and won Hong Kong's most important race, the Hong Kong International at 42/1 odds off of a significant layoff.



The race in which he finished 2nd by 9 lengths to Silence Suzuka, Midnight Bet also won the following years edition of that same race.


The 3rd place finisher, beaten 10 lengths was a good horse himself:



Taiki El Dorado was a son of Theatrical and he had a 9-5-2-2 lifetime record with over $1.2 million in earnings. Stay Gold, the horse he was 3 lengths clear of in his following start, is the sire of back-to-back Arc 2nd place finisher Orfevre.

9 and 10 lengths are huge margins over a turf course so firm, that 10 furlongs was run in a course record 1:57 4/5.

One of the many cool things about Silence Suzuka was that his pedigree was red, white, and blue. Sunday Silence was a horse with a turf pedigree, who somehow managed to win 3 of 4 meetings with one of history's greatest horses, Easy Goer. The dam of Silence Suzuka was a Southern Cal speed ball who set the pace in a Graded Stakes on dirt, going just 6 furlongs at Santa Anita.