'Silence' colts create a stir at JRHA sale

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Led by a $1,190,476 colt out of Fanjica (Ire), sons of Sunday Silence dominated Monday's opening session at the Japan Racing Horse Association's two-day select foal sale on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Six of Monday's top 10 lots were Sunday Silence colts, including the highest-priced lot, a son of the Grade 1-placed Law Society mare Fanjica.

Hiroyoshi Usuda purchased the session-topper from the Yoshida family's Shadai Farm, which stands Sunday Silence, Japan's perennial leading sire.

Fanjica, who won England's Group 3 Lancashire Oaks and was group-placed in Italy, won the Grade 3 Yerba Buena Handicap in 1996 and finished second in the Grade 1 Yellow Ribbon Stakes the following season. The Japanese sale-topper is her second foal.

Even in the face of the Sunday Silence juggernaut, several other stallions fielded expensive progeny. The day's second-highest price was the $888,888 that Takao Watanabe paid for a son of Pilsudski and Elizabethan Rose, a Japanese stakes-winner by Northern Taste. The Pilsudski colt is a half-brother to Japanese stakes-winners Fusaichi Zenon and Agnes Gold, both by Sunday Silence. Shadai Farm was the seller.

Earlier, a Mr. Greeley filly reached the session's top price for a filly - and tenth highest price overall - when Makoto Kaneko paid $571,428 to acquire her from Northern Farm's consignment. The filly is out of the California stakes-winner Blue Avenue (Classic Go Go) and is a half-sister to major

Japanese stakes-winner Kurofune (French Deputy).