Injured Easy Goer Retired to Stud : Horse racing: Veterinarians say 1989 Belmont Stakes winner would never be 100% after suffering bone chip in ankle.

Easy Goer, who competed in the shadow of Sunday Silence despite a career that led to almost $5 million in earnings, has been retired from racing because of a training injury at Belmont Park.

Trainer Shug McGaughey said Wednesday that Easy Goer chipped a bone in his right front ankle, apparently during a morning gallop at Belmont Sunday. After looking at X-rays of the injury, Kentucky veterinarians said that in time Easy Goer could race again, but he would never be 100% sound.

When they heard that, McGaughey and Ogden Phipps, owner-breeder of Easy Goer, decided to retire the 4-year-old colt, who will begin a stud career next year, probably at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Ky.

Easy Goer’s retirement jolted officials at Arlington International Racecourse, where a $1-million, nationally televised race featuring the Phipps horse, Sunday Silence and Criminal Type was scheduled for Aug. 4. Because of the conditions of the Arlington Challenge Cup, an invitational race, the absence of Easy Goer shrinks the purse to $600,000, and Calumet Farm, the principal owner of Criminal Type, indicated that its horse might not run unless the race is worth $1 million. Criminal Type has arguably emerged as the No. 1 horse in the country this year by defeating Easy Goer in New York and Sunday Silence in California.

“This probably changes our plans,” said J.T. Lundy, president of Calumet. “We’ve always considered it a slap in the face that Arlington would run a $1-million race and then lower the purse if one of the horses Criminal Type has beaten didn’t show up.

“I like Dick Duchossois (owner of Arlington), and I admire all the good he’s done for racing, but I’ve always had the feeling that he didn’t care whether our horse came to the race or not.”

Lundy and Criminal Type’s trainer, Wayne Lukas, will discuss their plans in Kentucky later this week. Another race under consideration, Lundy said, is the $250,000 Whitney Handicap at Saratoga, in Upstate New York, on the same day as the Arlington Cup.

“A $600,000 purse is nothing to look down on,” Lukas said Wednesday night. “But the Whitney is a prestigious race, and we’d be heavy favorites there. In terms of status, there’s no comparison between the Whitney and the Chicago race.

“The way I see the horse-of-the-year thing, it’s ours to lose and Sunday Silence’s to win. Sunday Silence has to catch up to us now. If we went to the Whitney, we’d just stay back East and get ready for the Breeders’ Cup (at Belmont Park in October). So there are pros and cons. Right now, I don’t know if there’s enough for us to win if we went to Chicago.”

Kenny Dunn, president of Arlington, said that the rules for the Challenge Cup won’t change.

“Without Easy Goer, the race will be worth $600,000, which is what we agreed to and the way we’ve advertised it,” Dunn said. “If anyone feels any differently, I can’t do anything about it. All of us should realize what’s best for racing.”

Charlie Whittingham, who trains and partly owns Sunday Silence, said his colt will be on a plane for Chicago Monday.

“This takes away a lot of the interest in the race, but we’re still running,” Whittingham said. “We had all those great races with Easy Goer last year, and everybody was looking forward to seeing the two horses meet again. Criminal Type is a damn good horse, but I really wanted to meet both of those horses out there. My horse couldn’t be training better than he is right now.”

Easy Goer beat Sunday Silence in last year’s Belmont Stakes, but in their other three meetings--the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Breeders’ Cup Classic--Easy Goer ran second to Whittingham’s colt. Sunday Silence’s victory by one length in the Breeders’ Cup at Gulfstream Park clinched two 1989 Eclipse Awards, for horse of the year and for best 3-year-old colt.

“Sunday Silence had a quicker turn of foot than we did in the Breeders’ Cup,” McGaughey said. “I’m disappointed that Easy Goer’s career is over, but what can you do? It’s just too bad that he never showed his best at the right time.”

Easy Goer, a son of Alydar and Relaxing, won 14 of 20 starts, with five seconds and one third, and earned $4.8 million. Only the retired Alysheba ($6.6 million) and John Henry ($6.5 million), along with Sunday Silence ($4.9 million) have earned more.

Easy Goer was also beaten in the 1988 Breeders’ Cup, running second in the mud in the Juvenile to the Lukas-trained Is It True at Churchill Downs. Easy Goer was still voted best 2-year-old colt.

Churchill Downs was muddy again for the Kentucky Derby the next year, and Sunday Silence beat heavily favored Easy Goer by 2 1/2 lengths. On a fast track for the Preakness two weeks later, Sunday Silence held off Easy Goer by a nose after the horses battled furiously in the stretch. Easy Goer’s eight-length victory in the Belmont three weeks later stopped Sunday Silence’s Triple Crown bid and denied the California colt’s owners a $5-million payday.

This year, Easy Goer won two of three starts, but in the Metropolitan Handicap, both Criminal Type and Housebuster finished ahead of him, the first time he finished as far back as third. More recently, Criminal Type beat Sunday Silence in the Californian at Hollywood Park.