THE EXPERIMENTAL FREE HANDICAP AND HISTORY
For a full list of Experimental Free Handicap weights, click here.
Lookin At Lucky, Vale of York top Experimental Free Handicap
by Jeff Lowe
Champion Lookin At Lucky and the only horse to beat him, Grey Goose Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) winner Vale of York, shared the highweight assignment of 126 pounds on the 2009 Experimental Free Handicap, a hypothetical ranking of last year’s two-year-olds as if being handicapped for a 1 1/16-mile race on dirt.
Lookin At Lucky and Vale of York share common ties besides their tight finish in the Juvenile, where Vale of York sprung a 30.60-to-1 upset, with Lookin At Lucky finishing second by a head after breaking from the outside post in a field of 13.
Vale of York races in the colors of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum’s Godolphin Racing. The 2008 Experimental Free Handicap highweight was Midshipman, who ran for Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley Stable when he won the ’08 Juvenile at Santa Anita Park. Midshipman also was pegged at 126 pounds, which is the standard high impost.
Bob Baffert trains Lookin At Lucky, and he also was the conditioner of Midshipman until Sheikh Mohammed moved the colt to the Godolphin roster last winter.
Racing secretaries Ben Huffman of Churchill Downs, P.J. Campo of the New York Racing Association and Tom Robbins of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club assigned weights to 93 males and 82 fillies who finished in the top four in graded or other unrestricted races with an added value of at least $75,000 in the United States.
Lookin At Lucky, by Smart Strike, scored in the Best Pal Stakes (G2), Del Mar Futurity (G1), and Norfolk Stakes (G1) leading up to the Breeders’ Cup, and he clinched the Eclipse Award as champion two-year-old male with a victory in the CashCall Futurity (G1) on December 19 at Hollywood Park.
Baffert is considering the San Felipe Stakes (G2) on March 13 at Santa Anita for Lookin At Lucky’s three-year-old debut for owners Mike Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman.