Sunday Silence a Big Winner : Whittingham Colt Romps to 11-Length Victory

At 73, trainer Charlie Whittingham became the oldest trainer ever to win the Kentucky Derby when Ferdinand zig-zagged his way home at Churchill Downs in 1986.

Nine days short of his 74th birthday, Whittingham saddled Temperate Sil for the trainer’s first Santa Anita Derby win the following year.

After waiting so long to win those blue-ribbon races for 3-year-olds, Whittingham has yet to shorten his stride.

Saturday, five days before his 76th birthday, he again won the Santa Anita Derby and, after assessing Sunday Silence’s record 11-length victory, Whittingham said that this colt will give him his best chance ever in Louisville.

In Sunday Silence, Whittingham has his fourth straight ticket to the Kentucky Derby. Temperate Sil made the town but not the track the year after Ferdinand, getting sick a week before the Derby. Last year, Whittingham’s Lively One ran 12th.

Lively One is a son of Halo, and on May 6 Whittingham will have another Halo colt running in the Derby.

“This one has a better chance to win back there than the others,” Whittingham said. “He tries, he wants to run and he trains well. All of his races have been good.”

All three of Houston’s races had been good, too, good enough for trainer Wayne Lukas to say that the $2.9-million colt could be the best he’s ever had. But none of the three had been farther than seven furlongs. On Saturday, Sunday Silence not only avenged a narrow loss to Houston last year, he demolished the Lukas colt, who beat only one horse--the 46-1 Mr. Bolg--in the six-horse field.

Sunday Silence’s 11 lengths represented the biggest winning margin in the 52 years of the Santa Anita Derby, breaking the record of eighth lengths set by Majestic Prince in 1969 and equaled by Affirmed in 1978. Both of those horses also won the Kentucky Derby.

Flying Continental made his typical late run to finish second Saturday, but he would have needed an after-burner against Sunday Silence. Music Merci, a pace factor with Houston in the early part of the 1 1/8-mile race, finished third, another three-quarters of a length behind, and it was another half-length back to Hawkster, who broke through the gate just before the start.

Houston finished 16 3/4 lengths behind Sunday Silence, leaving Lukas bewildered but not bowed.

“I wish I had an explanation,” said the trainer, who won both the Santa Anita and Kentucky derbys last year with a filly, Winning Colors. “I’ve lived with this horse for a year and a half, and this wasn’t Houston today.

“Even though he seemed to have good position going down the backstretch, he wasn’t in the race, because he would have been under a pull (from jockey Laffit Pincay) if he had been running the way he usually does. He has a bounding stride, and today he wasn’t bounding.”

Watching Houston quickly cool out in the receiving barn 45 minutes after the race, Lukas said: “I’m not wrong about this horse. I think he’ll redeem himself. You can’t spend as much time around a horse as I have with this one and be that far off. Don’t tear up your future-book (Kentucky Derby) tickets on him yet.”

The crowd of 42,806 made Sunday Silence the second choice behind the 9-10 Houston and the blackish son of Halo and Wishing Well paid $6.80, $3.40 and $2.80. Flying Continental, who finished second, 1 3/4 lengths behind Sunday Silence, in the San Felipe Handicap three weeks ago, paid $5.40 and $3.40, and Music Merci, who was also third in the San Felipe, paid $3.40. All of the horses carried 122 pounds, four less than Kentucky Derby weight.

Sunday Silence was timed in 1:47 3/5, three-fifths of a second slower than the race record set by Lucky Debonair in 1965 and matched by Sham in 1973. He earned $275,000 of the $500,000 purse by rolling to his fourth win in six starts. He lost photo finishes in his two second-place finishes.

With no other races scheduled for Sunday Silence, he will go to the Kentucky Derby as the second choice, after Easy Goer, who won the Gotham Mile on Saturday at Aqueduct.

“I’m not worried about the Kentucky Derby,” Whittingham said. “I’ll let Arthur Hancock (Sunday’s Silence’s principal owner) do the worrying back in Kentucky. We’ve got to go. If we don’t go, people will say we’re scared.”

Pat Valenzuela, who has ridden Sunday Silence in all but one of his races, thinks his colt will win the Kentucky Derby.

“My horse should improve between now and Derby day,” Valenzuela said. “I saw Easy Goer’s race today on television, but he didn’t run against a Music Merci or a Houston. A horse from Laurel (Diamond Donnie) was the best of the others that he beat.”

In the San Felipe, Sunday Silence broke awkwardly and then tried to overpower Valenzuela’s restraint in the early strides.

“Today he was perfect in the gate,” Valenzuela said Saturday. “He brushed with Houston a little bit, but then he relaxed super. I had enough horse to win the race any time I wanted to.”

Houston led for a half-mile, with Music Merci running on the rail and never being more than a length or two back. Sunday Silence was a close third, on the outside, going down the backstretch.

On the turn for home, Music Merci and Gary Stevens took the lead and Houston was struggling under Pincay. Sunday Silence came wide and easily overtook Music Merci with five-sixteenths of a mile to go.

Neither Lukas nor Pincay felt that the contact between Houston and Sunday Silence leaving the gate was a factor.

“The inside horse came out and hit my horse a little bit,” Pincay said. “But my horse didn’t break that badly and that was no excuse. He was running very good down the backstretch, rating nice and pricking his ears. All of a sudden, he stopped. I have no idea why. It could have been the heat or the first time going this far. He pulled up OK.”

Lukas said that Houston would be routinely examined to see if he may have hemorrhaged internally, but after seeing the horse in the receiving barn, he doubted if that occurred.

“The other horse was too much,” said Eddie Delahoussaye, who rode Flying Continental. “He was just awesome.”

Craig Lewis, Music Merci’s trainer, had even stronger words for Sunday Silence. “He’s a monster,” Lewis said. “My horse hooked Houston early and put him away, but then the other horse came at us.”

Gary Stevens broke his whip in two pieces hitting Music Merci in the stretch. “When I went up on the inside after Houston, I thought Laffit (Pincay) was just messing with me, but he had nothing left,” Stevens said.

Whittingham said that he would probably give Sunday Silence two more workouts at Santa Anita before shipping him to Louisville about two weeks before the Derby.

Except for Houston, who will now probably have another race before the Kentucky Derby, it’s unlikely that any of Saturday’s other horses will go to Louisville. The monster from the East and the monster from the West have spoken, and there’s nothing to be lost in the translation.

Horse Racing Notes

Besides Arthur Hancock, the other owners of Sunday Silence are Charlie Whittingham and Ernest Gaillard, a retired surgeon from La Jolla who has been racing horses for 35 years. . . . Whittingham became the sixth trainer in Santa Anita history to win two stakes in one day when his 5-year-old gray, Delegant, won the $84,650 Santa Gertrudes Handicap by a half-length over Academic and paid $6.60.

Whittingham started 17 horses in the Santa Anita Derby before Temperate Sil’s win. He finished second to Winning Colors with Lively One last year. . . . Sunday Silence gave Pat Valenzuela his second Santa Anita Derby win. At 17, Valenzuela won with Codex in 1980. Codex wasn’t eligible for the Kentucky Derby, and Angel Cordero replaced Valenzuela for the colt’s victory in the Preakness. . . . Saturday’s handle of $11.6 million, which included the eight off-track betting sites, was a record for Santa Anita Derby day.