Silentio went off as the 3-2 favorite in light of his third-place effort to
Up front, Winning Prize rattled off splits of :23 and :46 3/5 on the good
Winning Prize, who clocked six furlongs in 1:10 1/5, was still in command at
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Silentio and Summer Front matched strides down the stretch and crossed the
wire together. The large head of Silentio kept his nostril in front of the more
elegant Summer Front, in a final time of 1:40 3/5 for 1 1/16 grassy miles.
“When they hit the wire together, I thought we got beat,” Mandella said. “I
walked down dejected because if this horse gets beat an inch again after he got
beat an inch (by Suggestive Boy) in the Kilroe Mile (last March 2 at Santa
Anita), it was going to be pretty tough to take.
“When Summer Front came to him I thought he was going to go right by, but
when Silentio switched to his right lead, he kind of found his rhythm again.
“I’m really proud of him because he outran his odds (third at 31-1) in the
Breeders’ Cup Mile and proved everybody wrong, and today he proved me wrong
because I didn’t think he could win on this soft turf course.”
“It’s hard to tell who won when they come down there like that,” Bejarano
said. “It was very, very close. I always try to put my horse’s head down right
on the wire. He had a great trip, but I had to take a chance at the
three-eighths coming between horses because he wasn’t handling the course 100
percent and I didn’t want to go around.”
“It’s tough to swallow getting beat like that,” Summer Front’s rider Joe
Bravo said. “He was so comfortable and relaxed and I was ecstatic on the first
turn. With the way the pace was going, he was so comfortable underneath me, so
nice.”
“He was very relaxed at the back of the pack,” assistant trainer Christophe
Lorieul said of Summer Front, “and the rider moved at the right time. When you
look at the replay, the other horse had his head down right on the wire. They
both ran great. We just got the bad part of it.”
Winning Prize held third, another three-quarters of a length adrift, and
connections believed that the turf condition played a role.
“He was using a little more energy than he would have had to if the track
wasn’t so slippery,” jockey Corey Nakatani said. “Every time he tried to get
into it, the turf would break away from him a little. The one thing you don’t
want to do is take away his natural speed.”
“It was just a little bit slick for him,” Hall of Fame trainer Neil Drysdale
said, “but I thought he ran very well. These are three very nice horses.”
Big Bane
Theory reported home fourth, followed by Bio Pro, My Best Brother and the
tailed-off Bright Thought. He Be Fire N Ice was scratched.
Silentio paid $5 to win while improving his own resume to 10-4-1-4, $626,960,
all amassed on turf. A debut maiden winner at Santa Anita in his only start as a
juvenile, the Silent Name colt cleared his entry-level allowance condition in
his comeback 11 months later at Del Mar. He suffered his first loss when third
in a second-level allowance back at Santa Anita, but rebounded with a determined
score in last December’s Sir Beaufort.
His four-year-old campaign opened with a third in the February 2 Arcadia and
a near-miss in the March 2 Frank E. Kilroe Mile, where he lost a tight photo to
Suggestive Boy. After a subpar last of five to Wise Dan in the April 12 Maker’s
46 Mile at Keeneland, Silentio was spelled. The dark bay returned with a close
third to Obviously in the August 25 Del Mar Mile, his only stepping stone to
another third in the Breeders’ Cup Mile.
The Kentucky-bred Silentio is out of the unraced A.P. Indy mare Listen A. P.,
a full sister to Grade 2-placed Listen Indy. Silentio’s second dam, multiple
stakes queen and Group 1-placed Ecoute, is also the ancestress of Group 3 scorer
Surfrider and Group 3-placed stakes victress Enticement.
Silentio hails from the family of French highweights Green Tune and Pas de
Reponse, as well as Canadian Hall of Famer Northernette and English/Irish
champion and world-renowned sire Storm Bird.
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