Page 118 - 12 April 2013

My Life with Eastex
by Andy Golden
My life with Eastex began about 10 years before he came to live with me.
It was September, and like every September for so many years, I had made my way to Ruidoso, New Mexico to attend the 1984 All American Futurity. My job was to
take pictures for Speedhorse. I started out by visiting each of the qualifiers
at each of the trainer’s barns. I always enjoyed this time with the horses. After a few years of this ritual, I learned that if you carefully studied each horse you could sometimes see into the future and just maybe pick the winner. It may sound crazy, but I feel if you listen quietly, some horses talk to you in their own language. Eastex was one of those horses.
And that year, Eastex was the future. He won the All American, and that year it was easy to get caught up in the festive fever after the win photos were taken. My family knew the Halls pretty well. Apart from the usual contacts borne of common interests in the horse industry, my mother, Connie Golden, had even done the interior design for his dental office in Ada, Oklahoma.
Eastex kept winning and earned more than any other two-year-old in history until Stolis Winner broke his record. Eastex also held the record as the industry’s All-time Leading Money Earner until 1993.
Many people don’t know that Eastex was involved in a major mishap while he was traveling from track to track, which nearly ended his career. He was being laid over when his back leg got trapped in the stall gate. The injury was quite substantial and he carried the scars for the remainder of his life. I have no doubts that were it not for the injury, Eastex would have gone on to win even more races and made even more money. As it was, he made $1,869,406 and carried multiple champion titles. Not bad at all.
After Eastex’s racing career was over, I frequently looked for him every time
116 SPEEDHORSE, April 12, 2013
Eastex (right) and his longtime pasture mate Wendy
I drove into the Halls’ farm. There he was off in the pasture looking my way. One day Eastex was witness to a 360 degree spin I took when, after a light morning rain, I misjudged my speed and almost took down the impressive stone entrance. I always wondered what Eastex must have thought of that crazy human on that day. What I knew, and Eastex surely did not know, was that it was thanks to his winnings that all the ranch improvements and expansions were possible. All the more reason why I was totally shocked in disbelief when I heard that the Halls had sold Eastex for $4,000. The purchaser planned to run Eastex in match races despite his age of 11.
At the time – and even today – the idea that such a fate awaited such a deserved personality like Eastex seemed crazy and unbelievably unfair. So we quickly located the person who had purchased him and bought Eastex back. It took $10,000 to buy him back, and a group of concerned horse people joined Speedhorse in pooling money to bring him back home to Oklahoma. The
year was 1993. Just a year prior, I had purchased the headquarters for the D. Wayne Lukas operation. Eastex and I moved in together.
The day he arrived at his new home, Eastex got off the trailer looking like
a million bucks. I will never forget that he looked almost black in color, although he’s registered brown, with race plates on. He looked very proud and was strutting his stuff looking
to race. When we put him in a small pen next to a mare, he immediately started horsing around, undoubtedly due to the medications he was given. One interesting side note concerning another champion, Easy Jet. Before Easy Jet went to stand at Belle Mere Farms in Lexington, Oklahoma in 1985, he was brought to my farm
in Norman, Oklahoma, which at
that time, was still owned by Mel Hatley Farms. Easy Jet was the World Champion, and his arrival at the farm was a media event. Nine years later, here Eastex was in the same place as my all time favorite stallion had once stood parading in front of the cameras. It just so happened that Easy Jet was the sire of Eastex’s dam. To this day, a picture of Eastex hangs on the wall in my office and an Easy Jet bronze sits on my desk.
Eastex settled into his new home without a hitch, and he and the mare Wendy that had attracted his attention on day one, became inseparable.
It did not take long for the industry to catch wind of what had happened, and Eastex was immediately caught
courtesy Andy Golden