By Elaine Belval
When Bright Thought won the 1 1/2 mile, G2 San Luis Rey S. in 2:22.72 on March 16th, he achieved a remarkable feat: he toppled the long-standing world record of 2:22 4/5 set by Hawkster in the 1989 G1 Oak Tree Invitational H.
“He broke running, and I was going to go on with him,” said jockey Victor Espinoza. “But I didn’t want to go head-t0-head with every other horse all the way to the wire so I eased back a bit. I gave him a little breather and started to let him run from the three-eighths (pole). It’s a nice feeling to ride these kind of horses. He’s an unbelievable horse, he’s an unbelievable talent.”
Bright Thought is trained by Jorge Gutierrez and is owned by Alex Venneri (who bred the colt along with Postum Farm) and Marjorie Dye. Â It was Bright Thought’s third consecutive victory at Santa Anita, and his first in stakes company. He is being tentatively pointed towards the G1 Woodford Reserve on the Kentucky Derby undercard, on May 4th.
Bright Thought is by Hat Trick, a Japanese-bred son of Sunday Silence. Sunday Silence sired over 170 stakes winners, but the majority of them are in Japan. He has three GSWs in North America, six SWs in Europe, and two SWs in Australia. Sons of Sunday Silence have sired over 300 SWs worldwide. But, like Sunday Silence, only a handful are outside of Japan (in NA, the only SWs by sons of Sunday Silence, aside from those sired by Hat Trick, are G1 winner Cesario, by Special Week; and four by Silent Name, most notably G2 winner Silentio).
Hat Trick was a G1 winner in Japan. He won a maiden race at Tokyo in his first start in May of his three-year-old season, when he won four of five starts, finishing only five lengths back in the Japanese G3 Radio Tampa Sho. He won four of eight starts at four, including the Japanese G3 Tokyo Shimbun Hai in January and later the Japanese G1 Mile Championship at Kyoto in 1:32.10. He finished the year with a victory in the G1 Hong Kong Mile, defeating some of the best international milers. Hat Trick continued to run well in graded stakes company in Japan, but victory eluded him in his remaining starts.
Grade 1-winning sons of Sunday Silence are “a dime a dozen” in Japan. With South African bloodstock agent Robin Bruss and Team Valor’s Barry Irwin playing strong parts, Hat Trick was bought by John Jones III in late 2007. Despite not racing since April 2007—and never in the US—and being a son of Sunday Silence who as a sire was an unknown quantity in NA, Hat Trick proved very popular with US breeders, covering over 100 mares in 2008. It can’t have hurt that his dam is US G2 winner Tricky Code, by Lost Code.
Hat Trick sired seven individual two-year-old winners in his freshman crop in 2011, when he was one of the leading freshman sires. Among these winners, in five different countries, was European champion two-year-old Dabirsim.
Three other GSWs have emerged from that crop: King David (winner of the G1 Jamaica H. at Belmont); How Great (G3 Palm Beach S. at Gulfstream); and now Bright Thought. All five of the stallion’s SWs are turf horses.
Gainesway purchased a majority interest in Hat Trick in late 2011, and the 12-year-old now stands at that farm, where his 2013 fee is $15,000.