Dateline: 8/19/02

Sunday Silence finally lost his battle with laminitis today, suffering a fatal heart attack. The 16-year-old had been ill since May with an infection in his right leg which brought on laminitis in his left leg recently. His owners had been discussing whether to euthanize him or not for days, but finally on Monday he lay down in his stall, could not get back up, and eventually died of heart failure. He had been in a lot of pain which required strong pain killers to be administered.

The nearly black winner of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Breeders' Cup Classic over arch rival Easy Goer, was always a popular horse with the fans and will be mourned by many. His lifetime race record was 14-9-5-0 with $4,968,554 in earnings, and he was named Champion 3-Year-Old and Horse of the Year in 1989. As a sire in Japan, from 9 crops so far he produced 10 champions and 75 stakes winners with total progeny earnings of over $323 million.

More about Sunday Silence:

• Obit from Horse-Races.Net
• Obit from Blood Horse
• Obit from Thoroughbred Times
• Obit from DRF
• AP Wire Obit from Cincinnati Enquirer

• Forum remembrances of Sunday Silence
• More Forum posts about Sunday Silence

• Sunday Silence bio from the Hall of Fame
• Sunday Silence Tribute - from RedShiftVT
• Sunday Silence - from Thoroughbred Champions
• A Classic in every sense of the word - a detailed description of his win over Easy Goer in the Breeders' Cup Classic from Tiscali
• Sunday Silence - nice page in Japanese with lots of photos. Translate to English
• Stud Page - from Stallions.com
• Sunday Silence - a book by Ray Paulick