‘Silence at Last, and It’s Not So Easy : Breeders’ Cup: Whittingham and McCarron team up for a Classic win, making it three out of four for Sunday Silence over Easy Goer.

Charlie Whittingham isn’t usually thought of as a romantic, but the obstacles overcome by Sunday Silence are so numerous that they stir the poet in the 76-year-old trainer’s soul.

Knock-kneed and sickly as a youngster and unwanted by his owner as well as any number of potential buyers from Kentucky to California, Sunday Silence survived a van accident that has kept two other horses from ever running again. “This horse’s career has been a storybook affair,” Whittingham said during a rare reflective lull in his barn at Gulfstream Park last week.

Sunday Silence never seems to run out of chapters. Saturday, the 3-year-old colt closed the book on a most remarkable season, and concurrently slammed the door on a horse-of-the-year bid by Easy Goer, a horse who was virtually ordained for national honors before he ever ran a race.

With about 70 yards left to run in the $3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic, Chris McCarron, riding Sunday Silence after 8 a.m. for the first time, peeked over his shoulder to see who was coming. There was nothing frightening in his rear view. “My horse was still running strongly, and I was confident,” McCarron said. “Any horse back there would really have to be flying to beat me.”

At that point, Easy Goer was edging closer. But he had been ahead of only two runners in the eight-horse field, 11 lengths back of the front-running Slew City Slew, after a half-mile, and this was not a 1 1/2-mile race, like last June’s Belmont Stakes.

This time, Sunday Silence beat Easy Goer by a neck, his third victory over the New York horse in four tries; and in Lexington, Ky., where a woman named Adalin Wickman does the engraving for the Eclipse Awards, it is time to begin the lettering on the statuette for horse of the year.

The finish was not as close as the official margin shows.

McCarron, riding Sunday Silence only because Pat Valenzuela tested positive for cocaine at Santa Anita last month, was told by Whittingham that Sunday Silence abhors being hit by the whip, and although it’s a difficult order to honor in a big race, McCarron only waved the stick in his colt’s face.

Pat Day, on the losing end Saturday with Easy Goer, won the first Classic, at Hollywood Park in 1984, with similar restraint aboard Wild Again.

“We won comfortably,” McCarron said Saturday. “My horse was only running full out for the last three-sixteenths of a mile.”

Sunday Silence beat Easy Goer in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, but because of Easy Goer’s overwhelming eight-length victory over the California colt in the Belmont, the Gulfstream crowd of 51,342 made Easy Goer the 1-2 favorite Saturday and sent off Sunday Silence at 2-1.

Sunday Silence, earning $1.35 million for his owners--Arthur Hancock, Whittingham and Dr. Ernest Gaillard--ran 1 1/4 miles in 2:00 1/5, the fastest time in the Classic’s six-year history.

Blushing John ran a strong race, taking the lead from Slew City Slew on the far turn and not being headed until Sunday Silence moved ahead with an eighth of a mile left. Easy Goer finished a length ahead of Blushing John, who had 9 3/4 lengths on Present Value, and after them came Cryptoclearance, Slew City Slew, Western Playboy and Mi Selecto.

Sunday Silence rewarded his backers with $6, $2.80 and $2.40; Easy Goer returned $2.20 and $2.10, and Blushing John paid $3. A $2 perfecta on Sunday Silence and Easy Goer was worth $9.80.

Earlier, on a day that started with a flash downpour just before the first Breeders’ Cup race but ended in hot sunshine, Bayakoa was the only favorite to win as she coasted to a 1 1/2-length victory in the Distaff.

The rest of the races furnished mild surprises and shockers as Prized ($19.60 to win) took the Turf, Steinlen ($5.60) the Mile, Dancing Spree ($32.20) the Sprint, Rhythm ($7.20) the Juvenile and Go for Wand ($7) the Juvenile Fillies.

Go for Wand and Rhythm were trained by Shug McGaughey, but he still went into the Florida night as the saddest man in town because Easy Goer wasn’t able to beat Sunday Silence.

Day was second saddest. Criticized even for some of his winning rides on Easy Goer, the veteran jockey allowed the colt to fall 11 lengths behind after a half-mile. He moved within 4 1/2 lengths after three-quarters of a mile, but was still four lengths from the lead with an eighth of a mile to run.

“At the eighth pole, I started whipping him left-handed, and he was cutting into the lead with every jump,” Day said. “He broke good and straight, but when we left the chute and got onto the main track, he started drifting to the left. I straightened him out and that cost us our position.

“It took him a little longer to get going than I really anticipated. This is still the best horse I’ve ever ridden, and I think he ran a marvelous race. Once he turned for home, I thought we’d catch Sunday Silence. Another couple of jumps and we would have.”

McGaughey was surprised about Easy Goer’s early position.

“He dropped farther out of it than I thought he would,” McGaughey said. “He looked like he was climbing down the backstretch. He got running, but they pulled away from him on the turn, and then he came on again.”

Whittingham and McCarron have already won the Classic with horses that went on to be named horse of the year. Whittingham saddled Ferdinand for his victory at Hollywood Park in 1987, and McCarron won with Alysheba last year at Churchill Downs.

Whittingham has trained eight champions and won more than 500 stakes.

“Sunday Silence is much the best horse I’ve trained so far,” he said. “We won the Derby and the Preakness and lost the Belmont, but you can throw that race out. This horse is very sound, there’s not a pimple on him, and he’s got speed and he’s agile.”

Both Sunday Silence and Easy Goer are expected to run next year, where their rivalry will inevitably continue, though not right away.

Woody Stephens, a Hall of Fame trainer as is Whittingham, has often said that horses from the West get intimidated by New York’s tall buildings, but Whittingham had an answer for that Saturday.

“Tell my friend Woody that the big money’s in California,” Whittingham said. “But we’d like to run this horse again in the Breeders’ Cup (at Belmont Park next year). We just might come back and get all the money again.”

THE WINNERS

RACE HORSE JOCKEY SPRINT Dancing Spree Angel Cordero JUV. FILLIES Go For Wand Randy Romero DISTAFF Bayakoa Laffit Pincay MILE Steinlen Jose Santos JUV. COLTS, Rhythm Craig Perret GELDINGS TURF Prized Eddie Delahoussaye CLASSIC Sunday Silence Chris McCarron