Once facing shaky future, Silent Rule is undefeated, undaunted

Silent Rule is appropriately named. Even though she has a career record of 9-for-9, she has escaped notice in large part because of where she races.

Then again, the fact this 4-year-old filly even has a racing career is no small feat. Two years ago she faced an uncertain future not just as a racehorse but as a horse.

“Silent actually came in to me as a 2-year-old with a hairline fracture in her knee and for a rehab,” said John Hoctel, 53, a Florida realtor who owns a land-clearing business. He and his wife Linda Hoctel, 55, a high-school track standout turned horsewoman, own Silent Rule.

The short story is the Hoctels went back to their Ohio roots, turning back the clock to their days running a horse farm full time. They babied the daughter of Street Boss back to health with plans to sell her. Instead, West Virginia-based trainer and longtime friend Jay Bernardini convinced them there might be something more to this filly.

“She bulleted over here at Mountaineer last summer,” Bernardini said. “I was like wow. She’s a little different than everybody else.”

The next thing they all knew, Silent Rule made her racing debut last summer. Eleven months later, she is the winningest undefeated U.S. Thoroughbred in training.

“Nine-for-nine? That’s difficult,” Bernardini said. “Just to get nine races to go and to get the horse in the right spot at the right time and the equipment correct, for the stars to align nine times is pretty incredible.”

Silent Rule may be ready to emerge from the shadows of a racing career built entirely in Ohio. Bernardini said he nominated her for the $100,000 Regret Stakes, a six-furlong sprint July 20 at Monmouth Park for fillies and mares, 3 and up. It would be Silent Rule’s second black-type stakes.

“That’s a consideration,” Bernardini said. “And then there’s two more Ohio-bred stakes coming up, one on Aug. 14 (the Best of Ohio Honey Jay) and then one Sept. 4 (the Michael G. Mackey Memorial Angenora). Philosophically, we kind of have to weigh all the time do we keep her with the Ohio-breds? Or do we keep creating new challenges for her?”

This story is getting ahead of itself, though, because Silent Rule just as easily could have been looking at a very different life.

A beginning and a crossroads

Equibase records show Silent Rule was put up for auction by her Ohio breeder T/C Stable for $16,000 via the September 2022 Keeneland yearling sale. The Hoctels did not come into the picture until the following year, when they landed the ailing filly through a private ... , well, it was not exactly a sale.

“The owner just kind of decided to move on,” said John Hoctel, who did not want to name names which may or may not be formally recorded. “We were actually checking on another guy’s horse, and the other guy was the one who said he wanted to just move on, because she wasn’t ready for the races. They just moved on.”

So the Hoctels got Silent Rule for free. By then they had put the bigger footprint of their Ohio equine work in their past. They reduced their stable and rehab center to about 30 head since they relocated to Williston, Fla., near Ocala.

“We moved to Florida three years ago and almost semi-retired from it all,” Linda Hoctel said.

Still, they could not let go of Silent Rule without giving her a chance to prove her worth in some way. So they invested in some good advice from a doctor.

“We took her to the vet,” John Hoctel said. “They said she would be fine. Actually the vet said, ‘She’s the luckiest b---- I’ve ever seen.’ ”

Lucky that she landed with the Hoctels and then with Bernardini. Once the top trainer at Suffolk Downs in his native New England, Bernardini, 58, moved west when the old East Boston track closed. He since has won training titles at Mountaineer and Mahoning Valley.

“When they gave her to me, they said just take your time getting her ready more toward the summer and the fall,” Bernardini said. “I just kind of took my time, very relaxed.”

It looked like Silent Rule was ready to race early last summer, but then that option was taken away by another twist of fate.

“Last year we were dealing with a strangles outbreak in this area,” Bernardini said. “Other than her, that was the only popular thing we had going.”

Finally, it’s post time for Silent Rule

Once the dust on all the complications settled, and after five eye-catching workouts at Mountaineer, Bernardini decided to race Silent Rule as a sprinter. She carries the pedigree of her sire Street Boss, a two-time Grade 1-winning sprinter from the era of California synthetic tracks. She is out of Candy Ride mare Modern Lady, a turf router who had a racing record of 8: 1-3-0.

Bernardini settled on a maiden sprint for Silent Rule’s debut Aug. 10 at Thistledown. He had more than an inkling it would go well.

“I don’t gamble myself,” Bernardini told friends that day. “But if she doesn’t win by 10 or 15, I’ll be disappointed. I kind of knew that the cat was out of the bag about the third time she had breezed over here.”

Sent off as the 2-1 second choice in a field of nine fillies and mares, Silent Rule stalked for the first three furlongs and then pounced, running away to an 11 1/2-length triumph.

She went six furlongs that day as she has in all but one of her starts. She also had jockey Brandon Tapara, who has ridden her in all her races. Even the partnership with Tapara was kismet.

“I have two main riders in my stable, Erik Barbaran and Brandon Tapara,” Bernardini said. “Brandon was kind of the second guy, but he got lucky, because Erik had another mount which he was ready to run. So Brandon’s been with her ever since riding her.”

After an allowance victory by a neck next out on Sept. 2, Silent Rule moved to Mahoning Valley, where Bernardini threw her into the deep end of the pool against five other Ohio-registered 3-year-old fillies in the black-type, $75,000 First Lady Stakes.

“We have a couple ways to approach this,” Bernardini told the Hoctels. “It’s the only 3-year-old stake that she’s ever going to get to run in her entire life. ... If you want me to, let’s go ahead and put her in.”

Sent off as an 18-1 long shot the Monday of Thanksgiving week, Silent Rule broke slowly but then hustled to the inside, took a head lead after the first quarter-mile, opened a two-length advantage and held on to win by three-quarters of a length.

Looking back on that turning point, John Hoctel said, “We’re still numb. This doesn’t happen to people like us.”

So it has gone through a winter in Youngstown, Ohio, through four allowance sprints that produced four more victories, all at odds-on, including one against interstate opponents and another vs. older males. Between December and April, her margins of victory grew from 3 1/2 to 4 1/4 to 7 1/4 to 11 1/2.

Bernardini decided it was time for something completely different.

She looks ready to have her stakes

Having been there and done that over and over in allowance company at Mahoning, Silent Rule was given some new opportunities this spring.

“As we’ve gone here, we’ve had to create more challenges for her,” Bernardini said. “Two turns over at Thistle was something new for her.”

Even though she never had gone a route of ground before, Silent Rule still had the confidence of bettors who made her a 1-10 favorite May 8 for the 1 1/16-mile J. William Petro Memorial, a $75,000 race for nine state-bred fillies and mares.

Instead of her usual front-running style, Silent Rule stalked in third and fourth place around the first turn and up the backstretch. Tapara accelerated her wide around the second turn, taking the lead at the quarter pole on the way to a widening, 3 3/4-length win over a field that included four last-out winners.

“At the time you don’t know if she’s just a sprinter,” Bernardini said. “As great as she can sprint, because she can go nine-and-change (seconds for a furlong) on a fast racetrack, a lot of horses that can do that can’t go two turns if they come from a little off the pace. I know she got a low figure in that race, but the track was deep that day, and we didn’t send her off her feet.”

Bernardini kept Silent Rule in stakes company for what turned out to be a lackluster race June 8 at Belterra Park. Not that she was lackluster. The field was. Scratched down to only three state-bred, 4-year-old fillies, the $100,000 Best of Ohio Diana was little more than a three-quarter-mile workout for Silent Rule. Off at 1-2, she set the pace and drew off to a four-length win.

It was as close to a breeze as she normally gets. Bernardini has put Silent Rule through only four timed workouts since her debut in August. The latest came Friday, when she was clocked going a half-mile in 47.2 seconds, the fastest of five such drills that July 4 holiday morning at Mountaineer.

“Do I breeze like some classic trainers every six days? Breeze four times between races? No, I don’t. That’s not how I work,” Bernardini said. “Obviously, she’s trained. She trains forwardly.”

A better kind of uncertain future

Whether she goes to the Jersey Shore this month, continues to race in Ohio or maybe both of the above, Silent Rule has been committed by the Hoctels and Bernardini to racing into next year.

“Yeah, we’re going to,” Linda Hoctel said.

“As a 5-year-old, if everything keeps going the way it has been, we’re going to be a little more adventurous with her,” John Hoctel said. “Right now she’s a 4-year-old. We’re just being a little cautious.”

Even at 9-for-9, it is a big step up from restricted stakes to the Breeders’ Cup. It would be an even bigger leap to consider this year.

“The Breeders’ Cup would be a jam-up time-wise if she was that good,” Bernardini said. “I think she’s nominated and eligible, but on the same note, am I going to jump from point C, the Ohio-bred races, all the way to point Z? I don’t know that I’m going to make that one leap unless the ownership says they want to do that. And they haven’t.”

At least not this year. Even as ambitions may be more modest until 2026, there is the possibility Silent Rule could end up in the control of new owners.

“They want to breed her after (her racing career),” Linda Hoctel said about one offer. “They’re actually still talking with us. They’re going to write something and see what they come up with.”

Weigh that against what Silent Rule has done in the past 11 months. For her nine victories, she has earned $295,456. For now, the Hoctels are trying to look past the dollar signs.

“She’s just amazing for us,” Linda Hoctel said. “It is a fairy tale for us.”