Ontario: Silent Name leads juvenile sires for 2012

Silent Name, who returns to Adena Springs North in Ontario for 2013, is, quite literally, one of a kind.

The only son of the late Sunday Silence at stud in Canada, the multiple graded stakes winner led the Ontario juvenile sire list for 2012, siring 10 winners from 22 starters for progeny earnings of $650,541.

The 11-year-old Silent Name outpaced fellow Adena stallion Milwaukee Brew, who sired 12 winners and had 2012 progeny earnings of $569,106. Adena dominated the list, as the farm’s Sligo Bay checked in fifth and freshman sire Showing Up was 10th.

Among Silent Name’s standout juveniles were Crysta’s Court, who won the Victorian Queen Stakes at Woodbine and was her sire’s chief 2-year-old earner, bankrolling $99,542. He also sired Pyrite Mountain, winner of the Kingarvie Stakes at Woodbine, and stakes-placed winners Professor’s Ride and Silent Star.

“We’re very pleased to have him in Ontario on our roster,” Adena North sales manager Liam O’Rourke said. “We were delighted to see how well [his progeny] ran last year, especially at Woodbine.”

Silent Name’s most accomplished runner, from his first crop foaled in 2009, is Silentio. The colt won the Grade 2 Sir Beaufort Stakes in December at Santa Anita Park. Never off the board in five career starts, he most recently was third in the Grade 2 Arcadia Stakes at Santa Anita.

Through Feb. 20, Silent Name has sired 40 winners from 87 runners and had total progeny earnings of $2,392,929.

Silent Name won 6 of 23 career starts, earning $663,431 over four seasons of racing. Foaled in Japan, he launched his career in France, where he was a multiple stakes winner and Group 3-placed before coming to the United States in 2006, capturing the Arcadia Handicap on turf and the following year’s Grade 2 Commonwealth Breeders’ Cup Stakes on synthetic at Keeneland. Silent Name also was multiple Grade 1-placed on the turf in California.

Silent Name entered stud in 2008 at Adena Springs in Paris, Ky., before moving to Adena’s Gardiner Farms facility in Aurora, Ontario. He most recently stood as an Adena stallion at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds in New York in 2011 and 2012 before returning to Canada, where, O’Rourke noted, his versatility makes him an ideal fit for the market. He will stand for $5,000 stands and nurses this year.

Silent Name is from the penultimate crop of dual classic winner and champion Sunday Silence, who stood his entire career at Shadai Stallion Station on the island of Hokkaido prior to his death in 2002. Leader of Japan’s sire list from 1995 through 2007, Sunday Silence has continued to have a major impact through his sons, who have sired the last three Japanese Horse of the Year honorees. Special Week sired 2010 winner Buena Vista; Stay Gold sired 2011 recipient Orfevre; and Triple Crown winner Deep Impact was represented by last year’s winner, Gentildonna. Sunday Silence’s other sons include the late Agnes Tachyon, who led the worldwide earnings list in 2008, and standouts such as Zenno Rob Roy.

Along with Silent Name, the only other graded- or group-stakes-winning son of Sunday Silence at stud in North America is champion Hat Trick, who stands at Gainesway Farm in Lexington, Ky.

“It’s a pretty cool offering – he’s a very unique stallion to be able to offer people,” O’Rourke said. “Being by Sunday Silence, and out of a Danehill mare – those are two international superstars. . . . We hear about a lot of quality stock being exported, so it’s kind of cool to repatriate those stallions.”