Experimental Free is out!

[Heidilady]

Excellent. I thought it wasn't coming til next week based on last year's date which I finally found but here we go

http://www.drf.com/news/article/71779.html

First is the article from DRF and the next is the full list on pdf.

http://www.drf.com/misc/2005experimental.pdf

You'll notice that Favorite Trick and Songandaprayer were 2 of the big names with something like 5 total on the colt and filly lists. Thunder Gulch is at least a big force and has been associated with routes. Kinda sad that most of the big sires were not distance oriented but there's a reason for that.

I think it's curious to know that earlier the list used to be an evaluation of horses to come but it got a little too hard on their brains I guess and they figured it's easier to look at promising 2yos that have achieved something precociously already versus actually figure out which ones can go long based on 'expert' opinions. That would include the future routers that've run well short in the Hopeful,etc with the horses that haven't done much yet. I gotta say I found the original purpose more interesting because the really great horses often were around and obvious at age 2 and sometimes they found some really good ones that were there but not huge yet. The first method of the list would be fun for Derby future wagers and apparently the original creator (name escapes me but I'll try to go look) was really top notch at determing the classic horses and getting them on there.

I can get to work on looking at the dual qualifers but if someone else gets to that first or finds an article that mentions it that'd be good. It might be a bit before I have time to finish a list. Anybody care to do like I did and suggest one that got left off that they figure is a possible player?