Japan's leading sire, breeding giant Sunday Silence, has lost a 14-week battle with illness and laminitis. According to the Shadai Stallion Station in Hayakita, Hokkaido, the 16-year-old American champion, whose progeny changed the face of Japanese racing, succumbed to heart failure at 11 a.m. Monday.
Laminitis, a debilitating hoof disease, was first diagnosed on Aug. 5, some two weeks after a July 18 operation, the third operation the stallion underwent for an infection in his right foreleg. Though at first the prognosis for a full recovery was excellent, the infection failed to heal completely. The extra burden on the other legs, as Sunday Silence struggled to alleviate the pain on his right fore, took its toll and the laminitis grew progressively worse. The necessity of having to make the decision to put the stallion down loomed ever larger.
A round-the-clock team of staff workers and veterinarians kept watch over the past months as inquiries, get-well wishes, and advice flooded in from fans around the world. The Stallion Station also received numerous angry messages of frustration on its Web site, and postcards with handwritten pleas to not end the horse's life.