Super Derby to Offer $2 Million If Sunday Silence, Easy Goer Run

SHREVEPORT, La. —  The Super Derby, which doubled its purse from $500,000 to $1 million two years ago, will offer $2 million if Sunday Silence and Easy Goer enter the Sept. 24 race, Louisiana Downs owner Edward J. DeBartolo said Friday.

Sunday Silence won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness but was deprived of the Triple Crown when Easy Goer won the Belmont Stakes.

“For this Super Derby, we’re adding a million dollars to the pot, and it will be a $2-million race . . . because we are reasonably certain that we’re going to get Easy Goer and Sunday Silence,” DeBartolo said.

If that happens, DeBartolo said, $1.2 million of the $2-million purse would be paid to the winner of Super Derby X, $400,000 to the runner-up, $220,000 to the third-place finisher, $120,000 to the fourth-place finisher and $60,000 to the fifth horse.

The payoffs would be cut in half if neither horse starts, he said.

Both Charlie Whittingham and Shug McGaughey, respective trainers of Sunday Silence and Easy Goer, were noncommittal but expressed interest.

“I was planning to come to the Louisiana race if it fits along in our program as we go along,” Whittingham said in a conference call. “It’s on my schedule.”

“I feel the same way,” said McGaughey, who won last year’s Super Derby with Seeking the Gold. “It’s definitely one of our plans. Right now we’re going to try to get to the (Aug. 19) Travers the best way that we can. When we come out of the Travers, then we’ll try to make up our schedule to get us hopefully to the Breeders Cup.”