Triple Crown Flashback: Sunday Silence and Easy Goer - The Last Great Horseracing Rivalry

Not since Affirmed and Alydar battled for supremacy in the 1978 Triple Crown had there been as compelling a rivalry as that which developed between Sunday Silence and Easy Goer in 1989. There have been a few interesting rivalries such as Funny Cide and Empire Maker in 2003, and we missed out on a potentially great rivalry between Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra which just never materialized.

Sunday Silence and Easy Goer - one horse was from the west coast, the other from the east coast. One was black, one was chestnut. Sunday Silence was the powerful 11-length winner of the Santa Anita Derby. Easy Goer had run a powerful 13-length victory in the one mile Gotham at Aqueduct, running it in a track record of 132 and 2/5 seconds, the fastest one mile ever for a three-year-old.

Though they had never met up until the Derby, it was with this race where the rivalry would begin. Passing the stands for the first time around, Sunday Silence had about a length on Easy Goer and it remained that way down the backstretch. Turning into the muddy Churchill stretch, Sunday Silence took the lead and kicked away from Easy Goer and just would not give in, winning the Derby by two lengths. It was clear that the Californian was better this day than the New Yorker. Some wondered if Easy Goer disliked the muddy surface, as he had won seven of eight races up to the Kentucky Derby except for a second place finish in the prior year’s Breeder’s Cup Juvenile, also run over a muddy Churchill Downs strip.

The Preakness, two weeks later, ended with a breathtaking stretch duel. In a race reminiscent of Alydar and Affirmed’s quarter-of-a mile head-to-head battle in the 1978 Belmont Stakes, these two great horses hooked up at the quarter pole and at that point the rest of the horses just became background scenery. They dueled head-to-head, neither one giving an inch for the entire stretch, with Sunday Silence prevailing by a nose at the wire.

The Belmont would be the race in which Easy Goer would gain his revenge. He had the advantage of having run very well over that track before. In fact, he was a perfect three-for-three in races at Belmont Park as a two-year-old. Approaching the quarter pole, Easy Goer seemed to be gliding over his favorite surface more easily than his arch-rival, took command and just drew away from Sunday Silence, who was just second best that day. He ran the Belmont in 2:26 flat, the second-fastest Belmont ever run.

They would meet one final time in the 1989 Breeder’s Cup Classic. Easy Goer broke slowly and fell far behind early as Sunday Silence stalked the pace in third. Turning for home, Easy Goer had a full 4-½ lengths to make up on his rival.

Easy Goer was flying at the end but could just not get there in time. If the race had been a sixteenth of a mile longer, he would’ve run the big black colt down, but the Gulfstream Park stretch was one of the shorter stretches in America, unlike the long Belmont Park stretch. At the end, Sunday Silence took three of four races over Easy Goer.

Easy Goer is ranked 34th greatest racehorse and Sunday Silence is ranked 31st greatest racehorse of all time by Bloodhorse magazine.

One of the problems is that often great horses are retired to stud too early for really great rivalries to develop. Perhaps we will see one emerge between Uncle Mo and The Factor?