WinStar officials and associates had travelled to Japan to try to repatriate Empire Maker to America, but Gainesway Farm and Don Alberto Corp succeeded in the bidding for that stallion, who had previously been sold by Juddmonte Farms to the Japan Bloodhorse Breeders’ Association. WinStar, through agent John McCormack, bought the then yearling colt bred by Katsumi Yoshida’s Northern Farm for ¥94 million (around $750,000) at the Japan Racing Horse Association select sale in Hokkaido. Yoshida’s arrival at the farm was actually set into motion in the summer of 2015. “We all know what the Halo line has done all over the world,” says Tugel. So Yoshida has all the ingredients to be a substantial sire,” he adds, before saluting Yoshida’s great grandsire, a foundation rock to which breeders can also cling. “Heart’s Cry already has a son, Just A Way, who is the leading second-crop sire in Japan. And Hilda’s Passion, Yoshida’s dam, was a Grade 1 winner and a track record-setter, so there’s very little not to like about this horse. People may not know exactly who Heart’s Cry is, and it’s our job to tell them, but he’s a top sire and you’re getting a chance to breed to a son of a premier horse. “Heart’s Cry sired the winner of the Cox Plate in 2019, and more recently he had the winner of the Japan Cup. He’s one of the premier sires in not only Japan but the world. “He’s the return of the Sunday Silence line, but what people also have to realise is that Heart’s Cry is a leading sire. “That’s probably the one part of Yoshida’s profile that I think we have to educate people on,” observes Sean Tugel, WinStar director of bloodstock services and assistant racing manager.

Their main task at present revolves around tutoring the strengths of Yoshida’s sire Heart’s Cry, a top stallion in Japan whose offspring have performed with distinction internationally but who is not familiar to many Americans. Yet WinStar officials found that, even all these years later, they still have work to do in lobbying for this male line. Capitalising on the storybook angle of his potential, WinStar promoted the sleek bay on social media as #theReturnofSundaySilence. In the weeks after his arrival at WinStar in early November, Yoshida impressed admirers with his physical attractiveness in addition to his multi-dimensional race record. To read it, click hereĪ Grade 1 winner on dirt and turf, Yoshida offers his exceptional versatility as well as dashes of the exotic through his sire, Sunday Silence’s Japanese champion Heart’s Cry, and the familiar through his dam, American Grade 1 winner Hilda’s Passion, a finalist for the 2011 Eclipse Award as best female sprinter. This article first appeared in the Racing Post's guide to the new US sires of 2020. Three decades ago American breeders snubbed their 1989 Horse of the Year as not worthy of support at stud, with their chilling lack of interest the primary factor that spurred his sale abroad.ĭuring the forthcoming breeding season they will have a chance to make up for what, in hindsight, appears to have been an egregious error in judgement as the first elite American-raced scion of the now legendary male line established by Sunday Silence in Japan will begin stud duty at WinStar Farm.

Yoshida horae