Easy Goer's 3yo season
 

As the story goes - before he ever raced, Sunday Silence was involved in a van accident as his driver had a heart attack and the van flipper over with him in it. He came out of it unharmed. Lets go ahead and assume he suffered a serious injury in the accident ... and see what Easy Goer's 3-year-old season would look like with no Sunday Silence around.


* Wins the Swale handily by 8.75 lengths - 110 Beyer

* Wins the Gotham handily by 13 lengths - 118 Beyer

* Wins the Wood by 3 lengths - 110 Beyer

* Wins the Ky Derby by a head - 97 Beyer

* Wins the Preakness by 5 lengths - 113 Beyer

* Wins the Belmont by 9 lengths - 122 Beyer

* Wins the Whitney by 4.5 lengths - 119 Beyer

* Wins the Travers by 3 lengths - 121 Beyer

* Wins the Woodward by 2 lengths - 115 Beyer

* Wins the Jockey Club Gold Cup by 4 lengths - 120 Beyer

* Wins the BC Classic by a length - 3rd place beaten 11 lengths - 124 Beyer

In total: A triple crown winning 11-for-11 season - joins Whirlaway as the only triple crown winner to offically win the Travers as well. 4 Grade 1 wins against older males in as many attempts - including a Breeders Cup Classic victory.

Basically, without Sunday Silence, Easy Goer is probably going to widely get thought of by the racing press as one of the five greatest horses to ever live - I think many would even have him tops.

The only thing to take away from this - does the fact that Easy Goer raced against Sunday Silence make him any worse than he actually was? Of course not. There are a few extremely highly rated top 3yo's throughout history who dominated horrid 3-year-old crops and never faced older horses - or never faced older horses in legit horse racing situtations.

He was almost as good as Zenyatta.

Sunday Silence was the best excuse EG's progeny ever had

Very Good points here.

I think it's a shame that we had 2 very GREAT horses both worthy of winning the triple crown - come along on the same year.

If only he had crossed the Rockies and raced as a 6yo.

What was his Beyer in the loss to the great Lorenzoni?:rolleyes:

I thought it was great actually.

It was great.

alydar was was some kind of sire, within a couple of years....turkoman, alysheba and easy goer.

affirmed wouldn't be affirmed without alydar.

He got an 86 - and that's not a projection it was his actual figure.

Getting nipped in a debut sprint is no big deal - A LOT of great horses failed to win as first time starters.

Your recent favorite horse - Bernardini - was soundly beaten by several lengths in his debut at 6fs. He wouldn't lose again till Javier fixed him up with a masterfully timed ride in the BC Classic.

Easy Goer was a powerful finishing router - and often a green and erratic one. Getting nipped in a 6f debut sprint to a 4th time starter who was subsquently three times stakes placed at age 2 is no big deal. Lorenzoni also won an ALW race at Keeneland by 12 lengths prior to running 2nd in a Grade 2 his freshman year.

[quote name='King Glorious' timestamp='1263876122' post='394297']
People don't realize the importance luck plays in these things. It's almost as important as how good a horse actually is. If there was no Sunday Silence, Easy Goer would have been 3yo champion and HOY with wins in the:

Swale, Gotham, Wood Memorial, Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Belmont, Whitney, Travers, Woodward, JCGC, and BC Classic. Hell, he would not only have been the champion but he would be in the same convo with Secretariat, Spectacular Bid, and Dr. Fager as the best horse ever.

If there was no Easy Goer, Sunday Silence would have been a TC winner himself. They both had the bad luck of coming up against each other. This year, as good as Rachel was, if not for Jackson coming and making the offer for her, we wouldn't have seen any of this because her previous owner thought females shouldn't face males.
[/quote]

KG

Why do you even bother taking TFF seriously? He's a complete waste of time.

Easy Goer's debut and subsequent monster juvenile year drew parallels to Secretariat, who also disappointed in his debut (infamously portrayed in a meticulously realistic fashion in the Disney movie).

One hyped unraced CA colt from the '90s that also had a disastrous debut was the Naskra colt Olympio for Verne Winchell and Ron McAnally in '90 at Oak Tree. He missed the break and made up untold buckets of ground to finish IIRC in a blanket finish (he only got 4th). Next out he crushed before winning a quick edition of the Hollywood Prevue.

Best Pal and two turns derailed his move for the top of the division in CA, but he was good enough to make the Preakness later on, and had a 3yo year to rival the great Lost Code.

Can you dig up his PPs?

Another victim of Zenyatta. While always nuts, he used to have something genuine to offer, amidst all the anger. Zenyatta, however, put him over the edge.

Another man undone by a woman.

That was some Ky Derby - the Wood winner (Cahill Road) the Arkansas Derby winner (Olympio) and the Santa Anita Derby winner (Dinard) all missed the race.

I'll post the three of them later if I have them.

I was there for Cahill Road's Wood. He was a very good horse. I'll bet he would have gotten a huge number.

109 according to the ARM.

I see he beat Strike the Gold in an alw race at GP that winter.



That was some debut by Strike The Gold. Alydar's two Horse of the Year winners (Alysheba and Criminal Type) both failed to win their debut as well. Alysheba was 5th.

I feel like both of these horses places in history were diminished by running against each other in 1989. If not for Sunday Silence Easy Goer would be considered one of the greatest horses of all time - right up there with Seattle Slew, Secretariat, etc. Although Easy Goer is highly regarded today, I doubt many would call him a horse worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Secretariat.

IMO Sunday Silence benefitted more than Easy Goer did from the fact they both raced in the same year. By beating such a highly touted rival Sunday Silence earned a lot of respect. Had Easy Goer raced in the triple crown in 1989 and Sunday Silence raced in 1990 theoretically both would have won the triple crown. However, no one would believe Sunday Silence was the better horse. People would say Sunday Silence could never have beaten Easy Goer. But the fact they raced together in 1989 and SS won more than Easy Goer took one horse out of the top 10 in my opinion and put another horse slightly above him in the top 40.

The dude seriously needs a hooker. Maybe all of us DT'ers could pitch in a few cents each and get him a cheap whore to keep him company.