At a glance
- Status: active, stakes winner
- Won 2024 Bull Page Stakes
- Colt, Ontario-bred, foaled April 2, 2022
- By Silent Name out of Holy Cargo
- Trainer: Kevin Attard
- Acquired at the 2023 Keeneland September Yearling Sale
- Owned in equal partnership by Canuck Racing Club, SF Racing, Madaket Stables, and X-Men Racing
Behind the name
Dewolf was named after the most decorated Canadian naval officer in WWII and one of the most accomplished warriors in Canadian naval history. Born in Nova Scotia, Harry G. DeWolf was the commanding officer of the HMCS St. Laurent which fired the Royal Canadian Navy’s first shots of the war assisting in the evacuation of Dunkirk and helping British and French troops escape from continental Europe. Later while on antisubmarine duty west of Ireland, DeWolf and his crew rescued 857 survivors of the Arandora Star, a torpedoed British liner.
DeWolf was promoted to commander of the Tribal-class destroyer HMCS Haida in August 1943 and earned that boat’s reputation as the “fightingest ship in the Canadian Navy.” The Haida sank 14 enemy ships in just over a year with many of those battles taking place at night in operations that secured the English Channel in preparation for D-Day.
After the Haida’s sister ship (HCMS Athabaskan) was downed by a torpedo, DeWolf pursued two German destroyers, forcing one aground and damaging another before returning to rescue 42 Canadian sailors. Despite being in range of enemy coastal guns on the French coast and under constant threat of German submarines and dive bombers, DeWolf wouldn’t leave without pulling as many men as he could from the water.
Arguably Canada’s best destroyer captain ever, DeWolf was regarded as a fearless and skillful tactician and known to his crew as “Hard-Over Harry” for various bold maneuvers (the nautical term ‘hard over’ means to turn the ship’s wheel sharply). During the postwar years, DeWolf commanded the aircraft carriers HMCS Warrior and HMCS Magnificent before becoming chief of the naval staff in 1956.
Vice-Admiral DeWolf won medals including the UK’s Order of the British Empire, Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Service Cross, and Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, the United States’ Legion of Merit, France’s Legion of Honour and Croix de Guerre, the King Haakon VII Freedom Cross (Norway), and Canada’s Admiral’s Medal.
Canada’s new class of offshore patrol warships are called the DeWolf-class. The lead ship is the HMCS Harry DeWolf.
Harry DeWolf died in Ottawa in December of 2000 at the age of 97. He was buried at sea in the Bedford Basin off the coast of Nova Scotia.
About the sire
Dewolf’s sire, Silent Name, is a multiple graded stakes winner who retired after 23 races with a record of 6-2-4 and $663,431 in purses. In 2004 and 2005, he raced in France with a record of 3-2-1 in 10 starts. Relocating to the US for the 2006 season, Silent Name won his first two starts at Santa Anita and placed third in his next two races: the G1 Breeders’ Cup Mike at Hollywood Park and the G1 Eddie Read Stakes at Del Mar. In his final campaign in 2007, he started with another third place G1 finish and subsequently won the G2 Commonwealth Breeders’ Cup Stakes at Keeneland before unsuccessfully trying to get the elusive G1 win in his last four attempts which included a repeat appearance at the Breeders’ Cup Mile.
Silent Name went on to become one of Canada’s most accomplished sires and the nation’s Champion Sire for the past three years. In 2022, he was Canada’s #1 sire by black type performers and black type winners. He has sired 613 foals, 469 starters, 327 winners, 89 black type horses, 41 black type winners, and 89 stakes horses from 14 crops of racing age. Lifetime, total progeny earnings are $39,231,937 and 69.7% of his starting progeny are winners. Silent Name’s progeny earned $3,209,945 in 2023.
Bred in Japan from a European pedigree that had heavy doses of North American influences, Silent Name is one of the first sons of Japanese supersire Sunday Silence to stand outside Japan. Famously unsold for $17,000 as a yearling and $32,000 as a 2Y0 prior to flirting with death when caught up in a serious truck crash, Sunday Silence proceeded to win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Breeders’ Cup Classic in 1989.
About the dam
Dewolf’s dam, Holy Cargo, was sired by Holy Bull, a Florida-bred multiple graded stakes winner who retired after 16 starts with a record of 13-0-0 and just under $2.5 million in purse earnings. Six of his wins were G1s, three were G2s, one was a Black Type stakes race, and he ran in the 1994 Kentucky Derby. In that same year, Holy Bull won the Florida Derby, Blue Grass Stakes, Metropolitan Handicap, Dwyer Stakes, Haskell Invitational Handicap, Woodward, Olympic Handicap, and the Travers. In his final two campaigns, Holy Bull registered triple digit eSpeed figures in 9 of 11 races, topping out at 137.
