Whitney Handicap at Saratoga : Easy Goer Reprises First Career Victory

It sometimes is hard to find the winner’s circle at Saratoga. In a concession to the track’s 125-year-old tradition, the winner’s circle is a mere ring of chalk in front of the stands.

This is where Easy Goer ended up last summer after his first victory, in the second start of his career, and it’s where he returned Saturday after winning the Whitney Handicap by 4 1/2 lengths.

Almost two months after the 3-year-old colt won the Belmont, following second-place finishes behind Sunday Silence in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, trainer Shug McGaughey brought him back to the races against older horses and in humid, 95-degree heat.

This was to be a warmup for Easy Goer’s next race, the $1-million Travers here in two weeks, but it proved to be much more than that.

Turning for home, Pat Day had Easy Goer a close fourth in the six-horse field, surrounded by horses. The hole that opened was small, with Homebuilder on the outside and Lustra on the inside. Forever Silver, who had been running directly in front of Easy Goer, was tiring.

“I wasn’t really worried,” McGaughey said.

“I saw Pat sitting there, with a ton of horse under him and he wasn’t way, way out of it. Horses usually have a way of fanning out at that point in the race.”

After he split horses at the three-sixteenths pole, Easy Goer ran the last eighth of a mile in a fast 11 2/5 seconds, finishing the 1 1/8 miles under 119 pounds in 1:47 2/5.

That time was two-fifths of a second slower than the stakes and track record set by Tri Jet, a 5-year-old carrying 123 pounds, in 1974.

The only other Whitney to compare with Easy Goer’s is when Alydar, Easy Goer’s sire and then a 3-year-old, ran the same 1:47 2/5 under 123 pounds in 1978.

Forever Silver finished second Saturday, a half-length in front of Cryptoclearance, who carried high weight of 122 pounds.

The order of finish before 30,484 fans was Its Acedemic, Homebuilder and Lustra, who ran coupled with Cryptoclearance in the the betting.

Winning for the ninth time in 13 starts, Easy Goer earned $172,500, pushing his earnings over the $2-million mark for owner-breeder Ogden Phipps.

Easy Goer paid $2.60, $2.10 and $2.10, and the rest of the prices were all $2.10. The $2 exacta on Easy Goer and Forever Silver paid $5.20.

Dancing Spree and Triteamtri were scratched from the Whitney.

McGaughey entered Dancing Spree to run only if the track was off, but despite heavy rain Friday night, the racing strip was fast by mid-afternoon.

The Saratoga maintenance crew rolled the track Friday after the races and no horses were permitted to train on it Saturday morning, prompting speculation that Easy Goer might break the track record if the sun stayed out Saturday.

“When the horsemen first heard about what was going on, they didn’t like it, because they thought it was just being done for Phipps’ horse,” said P.G. Johnson, a trainer who didn’t have a starter in the Whitney.

“But when they found out that this is going to be the policy whenever it rains, then they didn’t seem to mind.”

Phipps is a former chairman of the Saratoga board of trustees and his son is still a board member.

Mack Miller, a veteran Saratoga trainer who won the Whitney with Java Gold in 1987, said he had never seen the track this fast.

“The track was fast,” McGaughey said, “but when they run that slow of a pace at the start, you usually don’t see horses run as fast as mine did at the end.”

With Lustra and Homebuilder up front, Forever Silver in third place and Easy Goer fourth, not far from the pace, the opening fractions were a slow :48 1/5 for a half-mile, 1:12 for six furlongs and 1:36 for the mile.

“The first time I hit him with the stick (in the stretch), it felt like he was going to come right through the bridle,” said Day, who has won the Whitney three times in the last four years. He won with Lady’s Secret and Java Gold in 1986-87.

“I was comfortable just following Forever Silver,” Day said. “I knew that Jacinto (Vasquez) had some horse under him, and when Lustra gave it up, I eased on through. I felt like if I ever got some daylight, I’d be OK. I was never worried. In two jumps, he just exploded.”

Saratoga has a long history of major upsets, and Vasquez was a principal in one of the biggest shockers when he rode Onion to victory over Secretariat, the Triple Crown champion, in the 1973 Whitney.

Easy Goer might not be a Secretariat yet, but Forever Silver, Vasquez’s mount Saturday, was not going to be another Onion, either.

“I had my eye on Easy Goer,” Vasquez said.

“It was just a question of whether he fired or didn’t run his race. My horse is a good one, but the winner is just the best around.”

Easy Goer is so good that the small list of trainers still considering the Travers got even smaller by Saturday night.

Horse Racing Notes

Shug McGaughey has won two consecutive Whitneys, having trained the filly Personal Ensign last year. . . . McGaughey had another 3-year-old colt win a stake Saturday, with Awe Inspiring taking the American Derby at Arlington Park. . . . McGaughey has another 3-year-old colt, Fast Play, who will run against Roi Danzig, Fire Maker and Is It True in today’s $150,000 Jim Dandy at Saratoga.

In another stake at Saratoga on Saturday, Mr. Nickerson gave Jose Santos his fourth winner of the day with a 3 1/2-length victory over Quick Call in the $87,750 A Phenomenon. Houston, the morning-line favorite, was scratched from the six-furlong race. “The race didn’t set up right, and it wasn’t that important of a race, anyway,” assistant trainer Jeff Lukas said. “We’ll run him in the King’s Bishop (at seven furlongs) on Travers day.” In beating Quick Call, who had won six straight at Saratoga the last two years, Mr. Nickerson was timed in 1:08 4/5, missing the track record by four-fifths of a second.