THE KENTUCKY DERBY : Jockeys Take Different Tacks : Day, Valenzuela Ride Favorites, but Similarities End There

The jockeys of the two top horses in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby are a study in contrasts, both on and off the track.

Pat Day, the easy rider, will be aboard Easy Goer, the chocolate-colored powerhouse from the East and the overwhelming Derby favorite. Pat Valenzuela, the turmoil kid, has the assignment on Sunday Silence, the sleek black challenger from California and the 3-year-old given the best chance to crash Easy Goer’s Triple Crown party.

Neither of the Pats has won the Derby, but one or the other is almost certain to change that Saturday.

Easy Goer, winner of the Wood Memorial this year and last year’s champion 2-year-old colt, has been beating up on horses in Florida and New York since the year began. Sunday Silence, who has been facing a better group of horses out West, is, like Easy Goer, undefeated in three races as a 3-year-old and comes to Churchill Downs off an epic 11-length victory in the Santa Anita Derby.

The day Sunday Silence won at Santa Anita, Valenzuela hit him with his whip at least 10 times through the stretch, even though the colt had established a clear lead coming out of the turn and no horses were challenging.

On the other hand, Day didn’t use his whip at all two weeks later in the Wood, although it appeared that Easy Goer might need some urging before he went on to a three-length victory.

There’s proof here that a jockey can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Arthur Hancock, Sunday Silence’s principal owner, didn’t like to see Valenzuela flailing away in the Santa Anita Derby, and neither did the colt’s trainer, Charlie Whittingham.

And although Day’s ride in the Wood was typical of his aplomb under pressure, it is a style that infuriates New York horseplayers, accustomed to seeing more aggressive tactics from the likes of Angel Cordero, who might start hustling a horse at the three-eighths pole.

Valenzuela explained to Sunday Silence’s handlers that he wanted to make sure the horse got enough out of the Santa Anita race to have him ready for the Kentucky Derby.

Whittingham seldom emphasizes the jockey’s role in the winning of a race. After the Santa Anita Derby, the trainer said:

“Nobody ever said that these jockeys ever came with a lot of brains. But Pat is a good rider and that’s why we have him. He’s got the reputation as a gate rider (breaking a horse quickly), but he’s got more than that going for him. He’s an excellent position rider, getting the horse in the spot he needs to be, and that should help in the big field that we have in the Derby.”

Day might not have whipped Easy Goer in the Wood because the only other time he used the stick on the horse--and he has ridden him in all nine starts--there was a negative reaction. That was in Easy Goer’s last loss, his second-place finish to Is It True in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile over a muddy track at Churchill Downs last November.

“Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have even hit him in the Breeders’ Cup,” Day said. “I did it out of desperation, and I think he got annoyed with me, because he knew he was doing the best he could on a track that was like peanut butter. So he jumped the tire tracks from the starting gate and changed leads (switched from one lead foot to the other), and I didn’t hit him anymore.”

Day provided the classic example of his forsaking the whip in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, racing’s first $3-million race, at Hollywood Park in 1984. Day didn’t hit Wild Again once, even though they were locked in a furious three-horse drive with Slew o’ Gold and Gate Dancer. Wild Again won by a head.

Day is 35 and Valenzuela is 26. Each has won his share of major races; Day has won three other Breeders’ Cup stakes and Valenzuela, only a week after his apprenticeship ended, won the Santa Anita Derby with Codex in 1980. However, Day is winless in six Kentucky Derbies and Valenzuela has failed to win in two tries here.

Valenzuela might have had a couple of other good shots at Churchill Downs, but once the horse didn’t run and the other time the jockey couldn’t be here. Trainer Wayne Lukas neglected to nominate Codex, and after Valenzuela won the Arkansas Derby with the filly, Althea, in 1984, he suffered a broken clavicle in a spill at Hollywood Park and missed the race.

Things seem to happen to Valenzuela, who broke a leg in another spill and suffered a broken hand in a Hollywood Park jockeys’ room fight with Gary Stevens. He has also been in and out of drug and alcohol rehabilitation at least three times and in trouble with stewards in California and New Mexico.

Day can relate to Valenzuela’s troubled career. In the mid-1970s, the small-town jockey from Colorado was trying to carve out a living in New York. Day fought with jockeys, went through drug and alcohol problems and eventually it cost his marriage.

Now, he is kind of considered an evangelist on horseback. He is likely as not to answer a question with a quotation from the Bible, and he thanks God--before the owner and trainer of the horse--if he wins an important race.

“I know Pat (Valenzuela) has gone through rehab, and that’s necessary when you have a problem,” Day said.

While Day openly discusses his personal problems, Valenzuela politely maintains his privacy and has continued to avoid answering questions about his past drug use since he arrived at Churchill Downs on Wednesday.