TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1066556
fastest damned trout there is. He's going to be a lot better off raised in a lake than in a little aquarium. Maybe just a little bit bett e r, b u t t h a t 's a l l i t t a k e s s o m e t i m e s . I don't know, maybe that nose in the Preakness was because Sunday Silence was raised in a great big field." Actually Hancock believes there are deeper and still more elusive reasons for when things work out, and we'll come to that. But first let's put aside that whole Sunday Silence melodrama, which has caused Hancock's original breakthrough to become relatively neglected. For though Hancock had sold half of Gato Del Sol to Leone Peters, he remained very much a Stone Farm production. In fact, he had bought his dam as a yearling and he stood the horse's sire, Cougar II. But his provenance seemed to count against Gato Del Sol before the Derby, when fate landed him the outside post. The draw took place in a marquee and Hancock kicked a wooden pole so hard that he broke a toe. "The Hancocks are jinxed!" he raged. "We'll never win this race." They went home and wrapped the toe in ice and he lay on the bed listening to a bluebird singing in a tree by the window. Now that was supposed to signal good luck. A vague memory stirred, from his days at Vanderbilt. Wasn't there some geometric formula for calculating the distance off a 90-degree triangle? Paul S u l l i v a n , h e h a d b e e n g o o d a t m a t h . H a n cock picked up the phone. I guess you'd say 1 wanted to maKe my marK. So it's amazing how it all unfolded. " "