Easy Goer

Thoroughbred racehorse infobox
horsename = Easy Goer


caption= Easy Goer winning the 1989 Belmont Stakes.
sire = Alydar
grandsire = Raise a Native
dam = Relaxing
damsire = Buckpasser
sex = Stallion
foaled = 1986
country = United States flagicon|USA
colour = Chestnut
breeder = Ogden Phipps
owner = Ogden Phipps
trainer = Claude R. "Shug" McGaughey III
record = 20: 14-5-1
earnings = $4,873,770
race = Champagne Stakes (1988)
Cowdin Stakes (1988)
Gotham Stakes (1989)
Swale Stakes (1989)
Travers Stakes (1989)
Belmont Stakes (1989)
Jockey Club Gold Cup (1989)
Wood Memorial Stakes (1989)
Whitney Handicap (1989)
Suburban Handicap (1990)
awards= U.S. Champion 2-Yr-Old Colt (1988)
honours = National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame (1997)
#34 - Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century
updated= September 21, 2006

Easy Goer (1986-1994) was an American thoroughbred racehorse, famous for conquering the champion Sunday Silence in the 1989 Belmont Stakes by 8 lengths. The victory deprived Sunday Silence of the Triple Crown. It was also the second fastest Belmont after Secretariat's.

Homebred and owned by Ogden Phipps, Easy Goer was a son of Alydar out of the champion mare Relaxing (by Horse of the Year Buckpasser), and was also the Eclipse Award winner for champion 2-year-old in 1988. Trained by Shug McGaughey and usually ridden by Pat Day, the bright chestnut colt with the white star in the middle of his forehead was a long-striding stalker who won 14 of his 20 races, and placed second five times, including three runner-up finishes to arch-rival Sunday Silence. These three races were the Kentucky Derby on a cold muddy day (jockey Pat Day was criticized for racing too defensively; also, Easy Goer had previously finished second in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile over a similarly muddy Churchill Downs track), the Preakness, where he lost by a nose in a thrilling stretch duel (jockey Pat Day was criticized for reining Easy Goer's head sideways during the stretch run), and the Breeders' Cup Classic of 1989. The only race he finished worse than second was the 1990 Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park, where he came third behind eventual Horse of the Year Criminal Type and two-time sprint champion Housebuster, while carrying considerably more weight than those two.

At two, he won the Grade I Cowdin Stakes, the Grade I Champagne Stakes, and came in second in the Grade I Breeders' Cup Juvenile. He was named Champion 2-year-old colt and was the early favorite for the Kentucky Derby.

At three he took the Swale Stakes, the Grade II Gotham Stakes (setting the track record of 1:32.2 for eight furlongs and almost breaking Dr. Fager's world record for the mile), the Grade I Wood Memorial, the Grade I Belmont Stakes, the Grade I Whitney Stakes, the Grade I Travers Stakes, the Grade I Woodward Stakes, and the Grade I Jockey Club Gold Cup. In the Whitney, Jockey Club Gold Cup, and Woodward, Easy Goer beat older horses, a fairly unusual feat. 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, he won the Gold Stage Stakes and the Grade I Suburban Handicap. He was third in the Grade I Metropolitan Mile.

Before a leg injury ended his racing days, Easy Goer's brilliant career earned him $4,873,770.

Only eight years old, and standing at stud, Easy Goer was turned out for exercise one day, and spent the time bucking and racing around his pasture. It seems, according to Thomas Swerczek, D.V.M., Ph.D. (a veterinary pathologist at the University of Kentucky) in his 1994 postmortem examination of Easy Goer, that the effort caused a sudden, massive allergic reaction. "Typically what happens is that you give a horse penicillin for four or five days and on the sixth day, he may get a mild case of anaphylactic shock," Swerczek said. "If the horse isn't turned out, he'll go right through it all right, but if you turn him out and he gets to running around, he may drop dead from a subtle type of hypertension from a combination of exercise and the reaction from the penicillin. I've even seen horses given a shot of penicillin and loaded onto a van who dropped dead on the van from the combination of stress and the shot. It has nothing to do with the heart per se, but rather a general reaction that causes pooling of blood due to the anaphylaxis."

Like humans, some horses are acutely allergic to bee stings and experience other allergies.

At stud, he sired three Grade I winners: the colt Will's Way and the fillies Furlough and My Flag. My Flag, the product of a mating with the legendary mare Personal Ensign is the dam of champion filly Storm Flag Flying. Personal Ensign (1988 Breeders' Cup Distaff), My Flag (1995 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies), and Storm Flag Flying (2002 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies were the first three-generation consecutive winners of Breeders' Cup races.

Easy Goer is also proving to be a good broodmare sire, with Metropolitan Handicap(Grade I) winner Corinthian, Blue Grass Stakes (Grade I) winner Monba, promising young sire Mull of Kintyre, and the aforementioned Storm Flag Flying among his daughter's offspring.

Easy Goer was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1997.

References

* [http://www.pedigreequery.com/easy+goer Easy Goer's pedigree and photo]
* [http://www.racingmuseum.org/hall/horse.asp?ID=62 Easy Goer's page in the Hall of Fame]