Rare video of an all-time Great 2yo performance
 

I stumbled across this on Youtube....it's video of the 1989 Hollywood Futurity. At the time, this race had the same $1,000,000 purse and Grade 1 status as the BC Juvenile. It's not the best of pictures...but still worth watching if you haven't seen it before.

Anyway, the Lukas trained Grand Canyon wins this race in blowout fashion with Cordero up. He got the 7/8ths in 1:20 and change, and finished up the mile distance in 1:33 flat---the fastest mile ever by a 2yo. The race earned something like a 123 Beyer figure....a number that hasn't even come close to being approanced since by a 2-year-old.

It should also be noted, that the horse he is blowing away in the stretch, isn't exactly some faint-hearted sprinter. That 2nd place finisher would later win the Pimlico Special over Preakness winner Summer Squall, in track record time. He would also win the 10 furlong Santa Anita Handicap. The 3rd place finisher also made over a million dollars routing in his career.

Grand Canyon never ran again after this race....in fact, he died not long after.

Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et_aI_TciJo

Another herculean effort at a one-turn mile, in 1989, was Easy Goer's facile win in the Gotham Stakes. He destroyed Secrateriat's stakes record, and the track record. Discreet Cat came within 0.05 seconds of breaking it this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlkIp09IjAk

Thanks for the link, a super performance.

btw, Farma Way beat not just Summer Squall in that Pimlico Special, but Unbridled and Jolie's Halo, too. I was lucky enough to witness that one in person.

--Dunbar

Interestingly enough.....Unbridled was by the same sire as Grand Canyon, and from the same crop.

It's too bad he died after that race.....makes you think what might have been.

Nice to see that Easy Goer race again, Marshall Cassidy sure was exciting.

I like how he called Easy Goer "America's horse" in one of his fall wins before the Breeders Cup Classic. He had only reffered to him as "New York's" Easy Goer in prior races.

Quite a carrer in a brief time span. Another "Wonder what he could have been"


Winnings: 8 Starts: 4 - 3 - 0, $1,019,540

At 2: Won Hollywood Futurity-G1, Norfolk S.-G1, Kentucky Jockey Club S.-G3; 2nd Breeders' Cup Juvenile S.-G1, Sunny Slope S.-L

Contracted lamimitis; humanely euthanized July 14, 1990. Buried at Overbrook Farm, Ky.


http://www.tbheritage.com/TurfHallma...Overbrook.html

I will have to say that the call of the races have improved dramatically