did you miss where i said many thought easy goer was a new yorker thru and thru? he loved belmont, and relished the surface. he lost to sunday silence everywhere but there.

as for catching a horse after the wire, they don't give awards for that. it means nothing. and if we don't rate a horse based on his track record, what's left??

Great horses handle sloppy tracks. They do not need to carry their preferred track condition with them.

Sunday Silence beat Easy Goer 3 times fair and square. Easy Goer cannot say the same.

The reason I started this thread is because I'm confused. It seems Easy Goer's accomplishments outweigh Sunday Silences. Forget who beat who more times. Why not judge Easy Goer and Sunday Silence's greatness based on their body of work. I don't think the 4 times they met supplied us with the answer of who was the better horse. But who was the better horse on that day and under that days conditions. A muddy belmont and Sunday Silence wins the triple crown. A better ride/ rider in baltimore and Easy Goer beats Sunday Silence hands down. A fast track in Louisville and Easy Goer and Sunday Silence are now on a fair playing field.

Noor raced against and beat the mighty Citation 4 of the 5 times they met. But Noor, we can agree, was not the better horse just because he won more times. Why was Citation the better horse? Citation's body of work outweighs Noor's.

Judging both Sunday Silence and Easy Goer's Bodies of work you can not tell me that Sunday Silence is the better horse. Did he ever come close to Dr. Fager's world record? Did he set track records? Did he win multiple times against older horses while spotting them weight? The fact Sunday Silence beat Easy Goer, to me, seems to be an incredible accomplishment. But the fact he beat Easy Goer multiple times does not seem to warrant his greatness to be more than Easy Goers.

If it does explain to me what is so great about Sunday Silence's body of work... to me it's a great body of work but not as good as Easy's.

One thing and one thing only....Pat "wait all" Day! Nuff said.
I think it was cool the first year at stud at Claiborne Farm they had those two great horses as stall mates.

A closer examination of Sunday Silence's body of work is in order.

While Easy Goer was spectacular in his Derby preps, as he beat up on horses like Rock Point and Diamond Donnie, Sunday Silence was facing much better horses in SoCal. Among his victims in both the Santa Anita Derby and San Felipe were Flying Continental (who went on to win the Jockey Club Gold Cup and Strub) and Music Merci (who won the Del Mar Futurity and went on to win the Illinois Derby, San Rafael and Malibu). Beaten in the Santa Anita Derby were Houston and Norfolk winner Hawkster, who would later make a name for himself on the grass.

As for the remainder of his career after the Triple Crown. Sunday Silence was not disgraced in his 3/4s of a length loss to Prized in the Swaps, as Prized would go on to win the Molson Million and BC Turf later that year. I will note that Easy Goer dusted Prized in the JCGC. Sunday Silence beat Dispersal (who won the Woodward the next year) and Easy Goer's barnmate Awe Inspiring in the Super Derby. Sunday Silence would close out his career with a head loss to Criminal Type in the Hollywood Gold Cup; finishing behind Sunday Silence that day were Opening Verse (BC Mile and Oaklawn Hcp), Ruhlman (Santa Anita Hcp), and Mi Selecto (Meadowlands Cup and Gulfstream Park Hcp).

You are saying EG's accomplishments outweigh Sunday Silence?

The KD, Preakness, and BC Classic are widely regarded as 3 of the most important races of the year. Who cares about track records when you win those?

Wow, I'm even happier I bought that Preakness Sunday Silence-Easy Goer finish line photo with autographs by Pat Valenzuela and Pat Day this week.

Stuff like this might drive the price up!

:) ......not selling though.

It has a spot reserved on my wall above the Zenyatta 2009 Breeders Cup finish line photo autographed by Mike Smith. And below the Genuine Risk Kentucky Derby finish line photo autographed by Jacinto Vasquez.

And "back and to the left" of my "Kentucky Tavern 1986 Derby Winner 'Ferdinand' mirror."


I bet on Easy Goer in The Derby and The Preakness. But I pulled like heck for Sunday Silence and bet a little on him at Belmont as he went for The Triple Crown.

I may not have won any of my wagers, but in the spirit of Lou Gehrig I feel like a winner.

In my case, just for paying attention at the time, and making a point to be there.

Easy Goer wins the Preakness if he doesn't try to rip SS's snout off during their stretch battle.

That series very easily should have been 2-2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tw09xHXUhI


It took more time than I expected, and the video was not ideal, but in the final strides, you are right!

Thanks, I had never noticed before.

I saw a blown up photo of this a long time ago, and it was much more telling than in this video.

this is hilarious. now beating horses head to head somehow does not count. easy goer is better/faster than sunday silence even though he could not beat him on the track. i still remember the races, the preakness was the best. sunday silence was all guts and easy goer was used to jogging home. when they line the horse up against 5 scrubs and of course he can win by 20 lenghths. it reminds me of the horse that many on here claim to be so great. she wins by daylight against scrubs but against equals its a whole new ball game. thats how it goes in sports, if the competition is inferior it makes you look better than you really are. if you can't beat the best 3 out of 4 times, you probably are not better......wow.....logic. excuses do not count and winning against "set up" fields is no equalizer. why don't we replay the races and bet on them? i'll give you easy goer everytime.......lol

i do believe in those matchups that citation was giving quite a few pounds to his opponent. certainly can't say that about ss/eg. it's probably the main reason citation gets respect, even tho he lost those. comparing citation/noor to sunday/easy is apples vs oranges.

easy goer was better , pat day cost him the preakness and the bcc

sunday silence beat him at the derby that's it peroid

And there are those out there who still think Alydar was better than Affirmed.

Hard Spun

This is a great web site and I make sure to visit it everyday, but the "New York as the center of the universe" mentality does not escape it (which is fine by me -- these New York homers are pretty knowledgeable and a lot of what I know I've picked up reading their debates with each other). That being said, Easy Goer was THEIR BOY. Great pedigree, good looking, sky's-the-limit potential... he was the next Great One. The thought of Sunday Silence (from California, which takes him maybe a notch higher than your average dog in NY's eyes) being better than their boy makes any self-respecting fan with an East Coast bias vomit in his mouth a little bit. Regardless of whether Sunday Silence took three of four from Easy Goer, or three hundred of four hundred, they've both got their fans who will not back down. And that's the way it should be, really.

If they raced 100 times at different distances with random conditions, it probably would be closer to 50/50 and not 75/25 (wins for SS, that is), but we've only got what happened. Besides, looking at their racing careers, I don't see how Easy Goer was any better over the long haul. It's not like Sunday Silence was a flash in the pan while Easy Goer went on to be Horse of the Year three years running. SS won 9 or 14 with 7 major stakes wins and never finished below second. EG took 14 of 20 with 10 or 11 major wins. Hell, even in retirement, Easy Goer had some nice offspring, but Sunday Silence became the leading sire in Japan for over a decade (Deep Impact)!

Just the way I see it. Of course, a lot of people around here have forgotten more about this sport than I know, so take it for what it's worth.

There's a lot of what-ifs in that Preakness.

What if Sunday Silence wasn't shut off by Easy Goer at the 3/8s pole when making an advance on Houston?

What if Pat Day didn't make that early run that had him on the lead before the 1/4 pole?

Cali runner still gets dissed even after proving his superiority on the racetrack

Amazing…

I became a racing fan in 1978, I saw Seattle Slew, Affirmed and The Bid, after The Bid retired, I was looking for the next great one. In 1988 Easy Goer came along and dominated his competition. He was named Champion 2yr old. I was not a fan, He was not as good as The Bid, That is how I measure Greatness. In The Derby I was rooting for Sunday Silence to beat Easy Goer. Then it was on to Pimlico, and that is when I became a fan of Easy Goer. He was a fighter. The Belmont proved that Easy Goer was the better of the two. That summer at Saratoga Easy Goer won The Travers AND The Whitney (beating elders), That Fall, he won The Woodward AND The JCGP (beating elders again). Come on, name me one other horse that won the Belmont, Travers, Whitney, Woodward and JCGP. If not for a sloppy Derby and a bad Pat Day ride at Pimlico, He would have been a Triple Crown winner, and would have been regarded as one of The true great ones of all time.

The answer is that the Belmont is run at Belmont. 12f circuit. Easy Goer was a large, big-striding horse. Such horses often have to shorten stride on the turns of 8f-circuits in order to keep their balance. If they are running against inferior competition, it doesn't hurt them, but if they are running against handier horses of similar ability, they are behind the 8-ball.

A similar difference occurs in the REAL Derby at Epsom. The track is up-hill, then sharply downhill around a turn, then up-hill to the finish, with the track sloped from side-to-side (a camber, they call it) in the final stretch. Big, long-striding horses that can handle flatter tracks with easier turns often come a-cropper at Epsom.