Easy Goer Was Better than Sunday Silence
 

Hey guys I need some help. First let me say, I’m new to the game. I’ve been engrossed in it for only a year now. So I don’t know everything. Also I have to say that I was 3 years old when Sunday Silence and Easy Goer were racing. So I have no memory of their rivalry at all. All that I know about Easy Goer and Sunday Silence I learned from researching them. That said: I’m perplexed by something and need help. Can anyone tell me why so many people regard Sunday Silence as a better horse than Easy Goer?

I’ve read a lot of lists and it seems to me a lot of people rank Sunday Silence as the superior horse. I don't know why? Is it because he won 3 of the 4 times that Easy Goer raced against him? Maybe for some people that’s the reason. But I can’t figure out why experts on the sport rank Sunday Silence ahead of Easy Goer. It seems ridiculous.

The most prestigious list on great horses that I know of is the blood horse list: The Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century. On this esteemed list Sunday Silence (#31) is ranked higher than Easy Goer (#34).

This list wasn’t made by some college teen in a dorm room or some casual race fan who only watches the triple crown. This is a list ranked by a highly regarded group of horsemen. This panel of experts must have had good reason to rank Sunday Silence higher on their list than Easy Goer.

At first I assumed that Easy Goer was ranked lower on the list because he only could beat Sunday Silence one time in their four meetings. But this cannot be right can it?

If the reason a horse ranks higher than another on a list is based on the amount of times they beat another horse than every list would rank Alsab above Whirlaway and Noor would rank above Citation. Alsab beat Whirlaway 2 of the three times they met on the track; And Noor beat Citation 4 of the 5 times they met. They seemed to agree with me because on their list Alsab (#65) ranks lower than Whirlaway (#26) and Noor (#69) ranks lower than Citation (#3). So I assume that the blood horse list didn't rank Sunday Silence above Easy Goer simply because he won 3 of the 4 times they met.

So if the number of times a horse beats another horse doesn’t determine which horse was better – what does? To the casual fan I think that the fact Easy Goer only won one jewel of the triple crown made him lesser than in their opinion. But to me the Triple Crown and how many jewels a horse wins is not the way to estimate a horse’s greatness. But most of the public only watches the triple crown (and breeders cup) and if that is all they watched than all they saw was Easy Goer losing to Sunday Silence. And that would lead one to assume Sunday Silence’s superiority. But me, I want to use the Triple Crown races to demonstrate Easy Goers superiority over Sunday Silence. I may be wrong but it seems Easy Goer has legitimate reasons for each of his Triple Crown race losses.

It's widely known Easy Goer didn't like sloppy tracks. The Derby was run over a sloppy track in 1989. But still Easy Goer battled hard to finish 2nd. Does this show Sunday Silence was the better horse of the two? To me it shows that Sunday Silence was the better of the two on an off track. It seems to me that if Easy Goer, who hated the slop, could finish 2nd in the slop to Sunday Silence he should have finished ahead of him on a track he liked.
I think this race showed a lot about Easy Goer. Easy Goer could have finished 3rd or below and would have had a very good excuse to have finished this far back with the track not to his liking. But instead he finished 2nd! Not bad for a horse who disliked slop. Easy Goer couldn’t show his mettle on an off track – plain and simple. Everyone knew it. And the race cannot be used as any sort of indicator of which horse was superior.

On to Pimlico and the Preakness and more problems for Easy Goer. This time Easy Goer was at a disadvantage because of his rider, Pat Day. Pat Day is only human and like all humans, Pat Day makes mistakes. Sadly for Easy Goer Pat Day made many of them in the Preakness and again Sunday Silence would benefit from Easy Goers vulnerability.

To me it seems Easy had a terrible ride in the Preakness and it was a bad ride that cost him a win. But even with a terrible ride Easy Goer still managed to only get beaten by a nose. If not for Pat Day he possible could have won by a nose – but that’s a different story. After the race Pat Day admitted to giving Easy Goer a bad ride. And if this is to believed – which I do – than you have to believe Easy Goer was again not allowed to give his best effort against Sunday Silence. And so I throw this loss out – as far as judging a horse’s greatness. Why should a jockey error make Sunday Silence better than Easy Goer? It is not Easy Goers fault Pat Day gave him a terrible ride. A bad rider on a great horse shows nothing about a horse’s talent. A bad ride only speaks volumes about the horses jockey in my opinion.

In the 1989 Belmont, on a fast track and with a great ride, Easy Goer demonstrated his superiority over Sunday Silence once and for all. I don't know much about there breeders cup meeting so I can't comment, but it seems to me, the 1989 Belmont Stakes is the race between Sunday Silence and Easy Goer that really proved to be the judge of which horse was superior. This time Sunday Silence could not be the horse that benefited from Easy Goers vulnerabilities. This time the champions were finally allowed to show their skills and under fair conditions (no slop or bad ride) Easy Goer showed his brilliance and superiority.

And so, if his Belmont win is not enough to ensure his superiority of Sunday Silence, it seems sad to me that Easy Goers place in history is diminished. Just because Easy Goer lost two of three Triple Crown races to Sunday Silence it does not make him the lesser horse. As I demonstrated Easy Goer really seems to have legit reasons for losing both the Derby and Preakness.

It just seems to me that Easy Goer had vulnerabilities and sadly Sunday Silence was better than Easy Goer was on the days when it counted. But being better than another horse only when he’s vulnerable does not make you a better horse.

To me it seems that the Triple Crown only showed that Easy Goer was not as good on a sloppy track and that Pat Day made some bad calls in the Preakness. That's what their triple crown meetings seem to say to me - not Easy Goer is less of a horse than Sunday Silence. When Easy Goer got a fast track in the Belmont he showed he was the superior horse on a fast track. And this doesn't show he's better than Sunday Silence either. It just shows he was better on a good track than Sunday Silence.

So to me, the reason that I think Easy Goer was superior to Sunday Silence, is not based on their number of wins over one another. I judge their superiority by simply comparing Easy Goer and Sunday Silence’s accomplishments on the track – accomplishments they made on the track when not facing each other. On those days Easy Goer showed he was perhaps as good, or even better, than previous Triple Crown winning horses. Sunday Silence was a great horse too, don't get me wrong, but Easy Goer, to me, was much more accomplished. And again, it's his accomplishments to me that outweigh Sunday Silence and his greatness.

Here's Easy Goer's some of Easy Goer’s non-triple crown accomplishments according to wikipedia:

• Grade I Champagne Stakes, with his 1:34 4/5 final time for the mile tied fourth fastest in Champagne Stakes history, behind Vitriolic, Seattle Slew and Devil's Bag.
  
• At three he took the Swale Stakes in the fastest 7 furlongs of the
  
• Gulfstream Park meeting in a time of 1:22 1/5
  
• The Grade II Gotham Stakes, (winning time of 1:32 2/5 for the mile set a new track record, was the fastest mile ever run on dirt surface by any three year old thoroughbred in history to this day, and was 1/5 of a second off of Dr. Fager's world record).
  
• The Grade I Whitney Stakes, (missed the stakes and track record in the Whitney by 2/5 of a second [established by Fred W. Hooper's Tri Jet])
  
• The Grade I Travers Stakes, (missed the stakes and track record Travers by 4/5 of a second [held by General Assembly])
  
• The Grade I Woodward Stakes,
  
• Grade I Jockey Club Gold Cup
  
• In 3 of these races (Whitney, Woodward, and Jockey Club Gold Cup), Easy Goer defeated older horses, becoming one of the few 3-year-olds in modern American racing history to accomplish such a feat.
  
• Easy Goer is the only horse in history to win the Whitney, Travers, Woodward and Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Also:

• He is one of only two horses to win the Champagne, Belmont Stakes and Travers.
  
• He was one of the last American-trained horses to win two Grade I races at a mile and a half on dirt (Belmont Stakes and Jockey Club Gold Cup).
  
• At four, Easy Goer won the Gold Stage Stakes and the Grade I Suburban Handicap (3/5 of a second off Alysheba's existing track record).
  
• He was also third in the Grade I Metropolitan Mile, marking the only time Easy Goer did not finish either first or second.
  
• Easy Goer was beaten by a little more than a length, behind eventual Horse of the Year Criminal Type and two-time sprint champion Housebuster, while carrying considerably more weight than those two.
  
• In Easy Goer's 20 race career, he was never defeated by more than 2 1/2 lengths!

Wow! To me these accomplishments outweigh Sunday Silence's - his being:

Well if you look on wikipedia it's actually not full with accomplishments that I can see just a list of his wins. Not a mention of him setting a track record or winning by an incredible margin.

Sunday Silence did win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Jockey Club Gold Cup, Santa Anita Derby, and a slew of other races and he never finished worse than second in 14 starts. Sunday Silence is no doubt a truly great horse. He would have to be if he were going to beat Easy Goer. But better than Easy Goer – I don’t think so.


Easy Goer's 1989 3-year-old campaign was most likely the greatest in American racing history, without yielding any year end championship awards, wikipedia says. And it sounds like this is a fair assumption to me.

But perhaps I'm wrong. Help me learn why Sunday Silence is better than Easy Goer. Like I said I'm new but to me it seems very hard to believe Sunday Silence (a great horse no doubt) was better than Easy Goer.

So if you know a reason why Sunday Silence is ranked higher than Easy Goer on so many lists or why he was the better horse please tell me because I just don’t get it.

the main reason is sunday silence defeating easy goer three of the four times they faced each other. easy goer was one hell of a horse, that's indisputable. he was my pick to win first saturday in may. but in the derby, preakness (albeit by a very, very small margin) and in the bcc, sunday won. one loss, excusable...two, maybe. but three? 75% of the time easy goer lost. many also criticize easy goer because he was pretty much a new yorker thru and thru.

slow night:(

Homer if you read what I wrote you would see that I don't think that Sunday Silence's wins make him the better horse. I can't make you read what I wrote I really challenge that argument. I respect and value your opinion and can tell you believe SS was better but I really don't think that SS was better because he was the victor three of the 4 times they met. You say when Easy Goer met a real challenge he was exposed as not so good but Easy Goer - read his bullets above - was not just winning he was setting track records! He was not just beating horses he was beating horses in times that set track records

Easy Goer was my Derby pick, also. In fact, he was my pick every time he ran.
What's that Danzig? He couldn't win outside his home state? That sounds familiar. Is there another thread or two about a horse like that?

It's been twenty years, I think I can finally say that Sunday Silence was the better horse.

Hmm... I get what your saying. And this makes sense to me. I agree that three losses is not as excusable as 2 but still as I say in what I wrote, Easy Goer seems to have lost two thirds of the triple crown with legit reasons. If SS was that much better than Easy Goer explain to me the huge margin of victory by Easy Goer in the Belmont stakes?

If Sunday Silence was so superior how could Easy Goer lick him in the Belmont? And if the answer is "well every horse has an off day" than Easy Goer has a legit excuse to have had an Off day in the bcc.

I just feel, and I'm no expert, like those two triple crown races are 100% excusable... could be wrong. And If you look at the BCC it's not like SS dominated Easy Goer. Easy Goer caught him after the wire... I just don't see how their track record is the basis for rating their greatness'. It seems like we never really got a good chance to see which horse was better based on the conditions of their races when they met.

Much as I like Birdstone ( and love Easy Goer ), the Champagne-Belmont-Travers triple may not be the world's greatest example to establish his greatness.

This argument can go around forever. They were both truly great horses. Sunday Silence's speed gave him a tactical edge over Easy Goer that more than narrowed any possible gap in their abilities. Pat Day further exacerbated the situation with his inept riding.

Pat wait all Day? I don't believe it.

:)

You know I'm starting to get a better sense now of why SS was considered to be a little bit better than Easy Goer...

I never thought about the whole bringing your game on the road part...

I appreciate your insight:)

can you imagine anyone losing the first 2 legs of the triple crown and still running in the belmont these days?

when was the last time this happened?

Probably when it involved the 'house' horse running in the house's biggest race of the year.

Flying Private

I've always loved Easy Goer. I have that famous pic of Sunday and Easy in the stretch from the Preakness hanging in my office at work. It's logical that Sunday is ranked higher since he beat Easy 3 of 4 times. With the many points you bring up about why Easy could be considered the better horse, it does make for an interesting discussion if you toss out the 3 of 4 win logic.

For what it's worth....I adopted a little calico kitten during the week that Easy Goer passed away and decided to name her Easy in his honor. I never named a kitten Sunday. ;)

i should rephrase the question to exclude d. wayne lukas horses.

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.