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Brighthill launch Pearl Series bonus
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Bittersweet weekend for Newman
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Dragon ready to leap the Tasman
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Class prevails at Rotorua
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Derby hope to kick off three-year-old campaign
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Time Test yearlings on show
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Racing NSW opens border to some Vic horses
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Roger That to commence domestic campaign
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Big Fish, Little Fish – Cambridge 27 August
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Big Fish, Little Fish – Invercargill 27 August
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Hoffman team full of chances
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Siblings set to shine at Cambridge
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Selections | Cambridge, 27 August
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Hot TAB Healesville Cup heats
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2020 Speed Star set for The Meadows
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Who will win Victorian Greyhound of the Year?
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Selections | Invercargill, 27 August
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Remedial works update
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Healesville abandoned
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Thompsons ‘smitten’ with Taken
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‘Told’ you so
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Runnin’ Royalty’s remarkable return
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Posted today by Sarah Clausen Christchurch Club Manger on lp page Get your stop the ban shirts out and everyone look your best tomorrow night. Addington have just tried to tell us to take down our stop the ban signs from the electronic board for their dual code. They don’t want us to display them. Do our industry proud and show the public we are worth keeping. This is very disappointing that another race code that collects rent revenue from the hounds behaves like this. I for one will not support harness code in the furture -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Among a raft of changes to the French calendar ratified by the European Pattern Committee, a clear determination from French racing's rulers to return the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (G1) to global pre-eminence shines through.View the full article -
And yes, I'm big on whips as a training aid. Always carry one myself. -
Sounds like we'll find out on March 8th if it worked.
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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
After Golden Gate Fields ran its last race on June 9, 2024, there was plenty of business that still had to be dealt with, and it went beyond the mundane tasks of selling such items as the pots and pans used by the kitchen staff. According to conventional wisdom, two of the best horses ever to race at the Northern California track, Lost in the Fog and Silky Sullivan, were buried in the infield. Wanting to do the right thing, the track's owner, The Stronach Group (TSG), tasked Golden Gate management with finding their remains so they could be exhumed and sent to what would be an appropriate resting spot. The Lost in the Fog case was cleared up quickly. Following his death in 2006 from cancer, he had not, in fact, been buried in the infield. “We were very quickly able to establish that Lost in Fog was not buried at Golden Gate Fields,” said track COO David Duggan. “We spoke to Greg Gilchrist, who trained the great Lost in the Fog and Lost in the Fog's ashes are in the company Greg Gilchrist as we speak. They are in a wooden urn with the colors of his owner, Harry Aleo, on them. That eliminated Lost in the Fog immediately from our inquiries.” But what about Silky Sullivan? Where had his remains gone? There was never a horse quite like him. He didn't get geared up to run until a half-mile or more of the race had been run. By that time he was so far back that the idea of his winning seemed impossible. He would drop back as many as 30 lengths. But his weapon was his devastating late kick. He charged from 28 lengths off the pace to win the 1958 Santa Anita Derby going away. The Kentucky Derby was the next stop but he spun his wheels over a wet track and finished twelfth. He won 12 of 27 career starts, hardly the stuff of a superstar, but he may have been the most popular horse of his times because so many people identified with how he'd dig a hole for himself, never gave up and so often prevailed. In another race, on Feb. 25, 1958, he came from 41 lengths behind to win a 6 1∕2-furlong allowance race by a half-length. In 1959, during his 4-year-old season, he was retired. When Kjell Qvale, a Norwegian-American business executive and a horse owner, heard that Silky Sullivan's owners were looking for a home for their late-running star, Qvale stepped in and bought him, even though his racing days were over. He had a very brief and unsuccessful stud career. Even in retirement, Silky Sullivan remained immensely popular. After his retirement, Qvale would parade him every year at Golden Gate Fields on St. Patrick's Day and every year at Santa Anita on Santa Anita Derby Day. In 1977, at age 22, Silky Sullivan died of an apparent heart attack at Qvale's farm in Pleasanton, California. It was a huge story in newspapers all across the country, which reported not only on his death but that he was “probably” going to be buried in the infield at Golden Gate Fields. Even Wikipedia, to this day, reports that both Silky Sullivan and Lost in the Fog were buried in the infield at Golden Gate. But while there were literally hundreds of newspapers stories regarding his death, one cannot find even one that covered his burial at Golden Gate or a picture of his remains being lowered into the ground. That's probably because it never happened. But Duggan at first believed that Silky Sullivan was in fact buried in the infield. He had read it enough times and heard it enough times that he came to believe that it had to be true. The last thing Duggan and his management team wanted was to leave behind the remains of one of the most beloved horses ever to run at Golden Gate only to have it covered by a housing development. “Our idea then was that we would exhume Silky Sullivan,” he said. “I hate to say it this way because it may not come across well, but we wanted to pack him in a designated box and send him on a journey to Old Friends in Kentucky. They had agreed to take his remains.” Duggan had no idea how difficult and cumbersome the task would become. Legend had it that the horse was buried behind a picket fence in the infield. But he wasn't there, or any place else the Golden Gate team looked. After the track closed, some companies and some government agencies, including the FBI, asked if they could hold training exercises at the track until it was bulldozed over. That the FBI was coming was perfect. One of the units it sent was its Evidence Response Team (ERT). Part of its job is to work on cold cases and to exhume bodies that perhaps normal law enforcement agencies couldn't find because they didn't have the resources. If anybody could find Silky Sullivan, it was the FBI. They found nothing. “The ERT team searched a particular area which was within the vicinity where we thought Silky Sullivan was and they used the most cutting-edge technology that they have at their disposal, which is significant,” Duggan said. “One of the main things they used was ground-penetrating radar and we've all heard that term used in terms of racetracks and racing surfaces. And they utilized other scientific means which they would use in what you would call a cold case.” After the FBI couldn't find anything, Duggan became convinced that Silky Sullivan had never been buried in the track's infield. It wasn't just that the FBI, with all its resources, couldn't find him, it was that there was no credible evidence to prove that he had been buried there. Certainly, newspapers and photographers would have covered the ceremonies, but there are no records of any such coverage. Nor could Duggan find anyone who would come forward and say they remember his remains being lowered into the ground. “One of the things about a racetrack is everybody knows everybody's business and everybody knows what's going on,” he said. “You couldn't keep a secret here to save your life. And no one would step forward and say, 'Yes, he is there. I remember when they buried him.'” Duggan said the search has ended but he is confident that The Stronach Group did everything it could to try to find Silky Sullivan. “We were generally interested,” he said. “We wanted to do the right thing. It was 100% our intention to find him and relocate him. It is my professional opinion that we exhausted every potential avenue using the best experts out there only hoping to confirm that he was there. We were not able to do so.” So what did happen to him? The one person who might have been able to provide the answer is Qvale, who died in 2013 at the age of 94. One theory that has made the rounds is that he was buried on Qvale's farm. Duggan was unable to track down any relatives of Qvale's who could help him find some answers. “At this point, it's part of racing folklore,” Duggan said. “When I came here in 2017, there was no plaque, there was nothing to commemorate that event. There was no photographic evidence to commemorate that event. There was nothing in any newspapers that specified for sure that he was there. There was the supposition that he was there, but that's all it was, a supposition. It shows you how important he was to people and he was important to us. He obviously had such a unique style and the way he won the Santa Anita Derby was remarkable. As a company, it was very important to us to locate him and get him back to Old Friends. We just weren't able to do it.” The post Whatever Happened to Silky Sullivan’s Remains? The Mystery May Never Be Solved appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article
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