The Experimental Free Hcp: Retrospective With Tommy Trotter
Jan 28, 2015 23:07:52 GMT -5
Post by Evelyn on Jan 28, 2015 23:07:52 GMT -5
I thought this was both informative and interesting!
The Experimental Free Handicap: A Retrospective With Tommy Trotter
by Edward L. Bowen
Paulick Report
Editor’s Note: Thursday, The Jockey Club will release the 2014 Experimental Free Handicap, with assigned weights from a committee comprised of P.J. Campo, Ben Huffman, Martin Panza and Tom Robbins. Racing historian and author Edward L. Bowen takes a trip down memory lane and revisits some prior editions of the Experimental Free Handicap with retired racing official Tommy Trotter.
Does a Grade I victory in October mean more than a Grade I victory in March?
That question seems to surface every year when racing fans debate the merits and accomplishments of Eclipse Award nominees and finalists.
It is also a question that the racing secretaries participating in the Experimental Free Handicap have had to consider for nearly 80 years. Published annually since 1935, the Experimental Free Handicap is a weight-based assessment of the previous year’s leading 2-year-olds, with the weights compiled for a hypothetical race on dirt.
Thomas E. “Tommy” Trotter, a widely respected racing official who spent more than 50 years in various capacities at Arlington Park, Fair Grounds, Gulfstream Park, Hialeah Park and the NYRA tracks, was one of those racing secretaries. He is now 88 years old and lives in Hallandale, Fla.
Trotter succeeded another legendary racing official, F. E. (Jimmy) Kilroe, as the official handicapper in assigning weights for the 1961 Experimental Free Handicap, which was based on racing in 1961.
That crop of horses actually presented a couple of issues for the handicappers: should they assign more importance to late fall races, when distances stretched out, and how should they assess horses based in different parts of the country that did not compete against each other?
As Trotter said recently, “Ridan was unbeaten and spectacular in Chicago, but did not race past Labor Day and did not come east. Then Crimson Satan, which Ridan had beaten easily, got hot. He won a division of the Hawthorne Futurity and then, in the final two races of an eastern campaign, Crimson Satan scored daylight victories in two of the top autumn races of the era, the Garden State Stakes and the Pimlico Futurity.”
Trotter said he tended to let projection for a horse’s 3-year-old season enter into his thinking.
In this case, he went with the late-developing Crimson Satan as top-weight at 126 and placed 125 on Ridan. The championship voting coincided, with Crimson Satan taking the title. (There was no soul searching necessary in the filly category that year because Meadow Stable’s Cicada was dominant: she was the top-weighted filly at 118 pounds.)
Two years later, Trotter again was faced with a situation similar to the Ridan-Crimson Satan scenario.
Raise a Native was spectacular early, but was stopped by an injury during the summer. Hurry to Market came on to win the Garden State Stakes. (The race, at one time the richest race in the world, occupied a status similar to that of today’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.)
In that case, Trotter held firm for early brilliance and placed Raise a Native atop the 1963 Experimental Free Handicap at 126. The year-end championship voting went the other way, in favor of Hurry to Market.
When it came time to assign weights for the 1964 Experimental Free Handicap, Trotter felt like Bold Lad stood out among his peers, with victories in wins in the Sapling, Hopeful, Futurity, and Champagne.
He looked to the past for guidance.
“Mr. [John B.] Campbell had put 130 on Native Dancer in the 1952 Experimental Free Handicap,” Trotter recalled in a recent interview from his Florida home. “I thought Bold Lad had done as much at 2 as Native Dancer had so I assigned him 130 pounds.”
The next year, 1965, “Buckpasser was going through a series of races similar to Bold Lad’s, but he lost to a filly (Priceless Gem) in the Futurity,” Trotter recalled. For the 1965 Experimental Free Handicap, Buckpasser was assigned the high weight of 126 pounds, which has always been the standard for a top-weighted male.
Trotter was involved with the Experimental Free Handicap for six more years and never assigned another weight higher than 126.
He readily admits that assigning weights is a challenging exercise, whether it’s a real race or a hypothetical race, and that sometimes it’s just impossible to say one horse is better than another.
That was the case in the filly division of the 1968 Experimental Free Handicap.
“Process Shot, Gallant Bloom, and Shuvee all turned in admirable campaigns,” Trotter said. “They all were very good and I couldn’t separate them.”
Each of the three was assigned 118 pounds, the highest weight for fillies that year.
Edward L. Bowen is the president of the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation and the author of 19 books on Thoroughbred racing.
The Experimental Free Handicap: A Retrospective With Tommy Trotter
by Edward L. Bowen
Paulick Report
Editor’s Note: Thursday, The Jockey Club will release the 2014 Experimental Free Handicap, with assigned weights from a committee comprised of P.J. Campo, Ben Huffman, Martin Panza and Tom Robbins. Racing historian and author Edward L. Bowen takes a trip down memory lane and revisits some prior editions of the Experimental Free Handicap with retired racing official Tommy Trotter.
Does a Grade I victory in October mean more than a Grade I victory in March?
That question seems to surface every year when racing fans debate the merits and accomplishments of Eclipse Award nominees and finalists.
It is also a question that the racing secretaries participating in the Experimental Free Handicap have had to consider for nearly 80 years. Published annually since 1935, the Experimental Free Handicap is a weight-based assessment of the previous year’s leading 2-year-olds, with the weights compiled for a hypothetical race on dirt.
Thomas E. “Tommy” Trotter, a widely respected racing official who spent more than 50 years in various capacities at Arlington Park, Fair Grounds, Gulfstream Park, Hialeah Park and the NYRA tracks, was one of those racing secretaries. He is now 88 years old and lives in Hallandale, Fla.
Trotter succeeded another legendary racing official, F. E. (Jimmy) Kilroe, as the official handicapper in assigning weights for the 1961 Experimental Free Handicap, which was based on racing in 1961.
That crop of horses actually presented a couple of issues for the handicappers: should they assign more importance to late fall races, when distances stretched out, and how should they assess horses based in different parts of the country that did not compete against each other?
As Trotter said recently, “Ridan was unbeaten and spectacular in Chicago, but did not race past Labor Day and did not come east. Then Crimson Satan, which Ridan had beaten easily, got hot. He won a division of the Hawthorne Futurity and then, in the final two races of an eastern campaign, Crimson Satan scored daylight victories in two of the top autumn races of the era, the Garden State Stakes and the Pimlico Futurity.”
Trotter said he tended to let projection for a horse’s 3-year-old season enter into his thinking.
In this case, he went with the late-developing Crimson Satan as top-weight at 126 and placed 125 on Ridan. The championship voting coincided, with Crimson Satan taking the title. (There was no soul searching necessary in the filly category that year because Meadow Stable’s Cicada was dominant: she was the top-weighted filly at 118 pounds.)
Two years later, Trotter again was faced with a situation similar to the Ridan-Crimson Satan scenario.
Raise a Native was spectacular early, but was stopped by an injury during the summer. Hurry to Market came on to win the Garden State Stakes. (The race, at one time the richest race in the world, occupied a status similar to that of today’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.)
In that case, Trotter held firm for early brilliance and placed Raise a Native atop the 1963 Experimental Free Handicap at 126. The year-end championship voting went the other way, in favor of Hurry to Market.
When it came time to assign weights for the 1964 Experimental Free Handicap, Trotter felt like Bold Lad stood out among his peers, with victories in wins in the Sapling, Hopeful, Futurity, and Champagne.
He looked to the past for guidance.
“Mr. [John B.] Campbell had put 130 on Native Dancer in the 1952 Experimental Free Handicap,” Trotter recalled in a recent interview from his Florida home. “I thought Bold Lad had done as much at 2 as Native Dancer had so I assigned him 130 pounds.”
The next year, 1965, “Buckpasser was going through a series of races similar to Bold Lad’s, but he lost to a filly (Priceless Gem) in the Futurity,” Trotter recalled. For the 1965 Experimental Free Handicap, Buckpasser was assigned the high weight of 126 pounds, which has always been the standard for a top-weighted male.
Trotter was involved with the Experimental Free Handicap for six more years and never assigned another weight higher than 126.
He readily admits that assigning weights is a challenging exercise, whether it’s a real race or a hypothetical race, and that sometimes it’s just impossible to say one horse is better than another.
That was the case in the filly division of the 1968 Experimental Free Handicap.
“Process Shot, Gallant Bloom, and Shuvee all turned in admirable campaigns,” Trotter said. “They all were very good and I couldn’t separate them.”
Each of the three was assigned 118 pounds, the highest weight for fillies that year.
Edward L. Bowen is the president of the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation and the author of 19 books on Thoroughbred racing.
