Easy Goer Dies Suddenly at Age 8 : Horse racing: Colt, best remembered for rivalry with Sunday Silence, won Belmont Stakes in 1989.

His groom beckoned, and Easy Goer came running with the stride and grace that made him a champion. Then he died.

The 2-year-old champion of 1988, remembered for an intense rivalry with Sunday Silence, died Thursday in Paris, Ky. He was 8.

“His groom was showing some people around on a tour,” Shug McGaughey, who trained Easy Goer for Ogden Phipps in 1988-89, said from his home in Garden City, N.Y. “He whistled for him and he came running down. He put a shank on him and let him out of the paddock. Then he went down on his knees, and it was all over. He was dead in 10 seconds. I’m 99% sure it was a heart attack.

“We’re terribly disappointed. He meant a lot to me. He gave us the opportunity to win a lot of races I’d never won before. I got my first classic victory with him in the Belmont.”

In that 1989 race, Easy Goer denied Sunday Silence the Triple Crown after having finished second to him in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

Gus Koch, assistant farm manager at Claiborne Farm, said an autopsy will be performed at the diagnostic laboratory at the University of Kentucky but that results might not be known for a week. Easy Goer will be buried at Claiborne, where he stood at stud.

“We’ve got a few of his first crop of 2-year-olds here that we like,” McGaughey said. “It looks like maybe he got off to a good start at stud and now this happened.”

Easy Goer, a son of Alydar, won 14 of 20 starts, with five seconds and one third, and retired in 1990 with earnings of $4,873,770.

In 1989, Easy Goer won his first three starts and was the Kentucky Derby favorite, but he finished 2 1/2 lengths behind Sunday Silence.

Despite the defeat, the colt, bred and owned by Phipps, was again favored in the Preakness. Again he finished second to Sunday Silence, this time by a half-length after a stirring stretch duel.

Easy Goer beat Sunday Silence by eight lengths in the Belmont Stakes.