Hansen, last year’s champion 2-year-old male and undefeated winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and Union Rags, who won the Champagne Stakes and finished second to Hansen in the Juvenile, have received the high weight assignment of 126 pounds on The Jockey Club’s 2011 Experimental Free Handicap, released today by The Jockey Club.
The filly division is headed by last year’s champion 2-year-old filly and undefeated Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner, My Miss Aurelia, at 124 pounds.
All Experimental Free Handicap weight assignments, as well as past performances for those horses, are available within the Publications and Resources section of jockeyclub.com at jockeyclub.com/experimental.
The Jockey Club Experimental Free Handicap, published annually since 1935, is a weight-based assessment of the previous year’s leading 2-year-olds, with the weights compiled for a hypothetical race at 1 1/16 miles on dirt.
The weighting committee of racing secretaries was once again composed of Ben Huffman of Churchill Downs and Keeneland, P.J. Campo of the New York Racing Association and Thomas S. Robbins of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club.
The committee weighted a total of 130 males and 94 fillies. Eligible for weighting were all 2-year-olds of 2011 that finished among the top four in graded or listed stakes races run in the continental United States. Listed stakes in 2011 were those with a value of $75,000 or more available to all starters, and no restrictions other than age or sex.
Hansen, a son of Tapit, won all three of his starts last year by a combined 25 1/2 lengths and earned $1,153,305. Owned by Dr. Kendall Hansen and Sky Chai Racing, Hansen won the Kentucky Cup Juvenile Stakes in addition to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. The gray colt suffered his first defeat this past weekend when he finished second to Algorithms in the Grade III Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
Union Rags, by Dixie Union, won three of four starts last year by a combined 14 1/4 lengths, including the Saratoga Special, and posted earnings of $858,800. He is bred and owned by Phyllis M. Wyeth.
In the filly division, the 124 pounds assigned to My Miss Aurelia is one pound higher than the standard impost for top Experimental fillies.
Bred in Kentucky by Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings LLC, My Miss Aurelia won all four of her starts, including the Adirondack Stakes and the Frizette Stakes, by a combined total of 14 1/2 lengths. She is owned by Stonestreet Stables and George Bolton and she earned $1,380,000 last year.
Among sires of Experimental horses, Indian Charlie leads the list of colts and geldings with four representatives; Bluegrass Cat, City Zip, Giants Causeway, High Cotton, Kitten’s Joy, Scat Daddy, Wildcat Heir and With Distinction have three each.
Hard Spun, Kitten’s Joy and Lion Heart head the fillies’ list with four representatives each. Scat Daddy and Songandaprayer have three each.
Combining the two lists, Kitten’s Joy is the leading sire with seven, followed by Indian Charlie, Lion Heart and Scat Daddy with six representatives each.
Of the 224 juveniles weighted, 150 were bred in Kentucky, 33 in Florida, seven in California and six in New York.
Alicia Wincze Hughes is the turf writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader. She started riding at age 8 and was a four-year member of the Pace University equestrian team.
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