Ace miler Baaeed brings unbeaten record into J.T. Lockinge Stakes

Baaeed, surely one of the top two turf milers in the world, makes his 2022 debut Saturday at Newbury Racecourse in England as the odds-on favorite in the Group 1 J.T. Lockinge Stakes.

Baaeed debuted at 3 in June 2021, and won all six of his starts. A campaign that began at Leicester in a maiden race with a $5,000 purse ended at Ascot with a victory over Palace Pier, considered Europe’s leading miler at the time, in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on the British Champions card. Baaeed did get a three-pound weight-for-age break from Palace Pier while beating him a neck to cap his perfect season.

What’s scary is Baaeed only improved through his 3-year-old year and has a right to grow into a better horse this season at age 4. He should prove to be Europe’s top miler again in 2022 and, comparing top race to top race going a mile on grass, only Hong Kong champion Golden Sixty might be Baaeed’s equal anywhere on the globe.

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Bred and owned by Shadwell Estate Company, Baaeed is a son of the great Sea the Stars and the Kingmambo mare Aghareed. Sea the Stars won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe over 1 1/2 miles, Aghareed was a winner at 1 1/4 miles, and her son Hukum is a 1 1/2-mile horse. Thus, there was a thought that Baaeed only was getting warmed up racing over one mile, but that might prove his true calling.

Trained by William Haggas and ridden in every start by Jim Crowley, Baaeed won well over straight courses and around turns, shipped to France to capture the Prix du Moulin de Longchamp in September, and has displayed a capacity both to stalk the pace and finish, or to be held farther off the lead and come with a massive late burst. He’s a formidable horse who will be difficult to oppose in the Lockinge, a straight-course mile, won last year by Palace Pier, that attracted a field of nine.

There are worthy rivals among them, including 4-year-old fillies Mother Earth and Alcohol Free, who get three pounds from their male rivals. Both fillies got in a prep for the Lockinge this spring, with Mother Earth winning her race at The Curragh, and Alcohol Free finishing third in a Sandown Park tune-up. Alcohol Free, a Group 3 winner last season over the Newbury course, hit her peak capturing the Group 1 Sussex Stakes last summer at Goodwood, comfortably beating a high-class field including 2000 Guineas winner Poetic Flare. Mother Earth was 10th in the Breeders’ Cup Mile and finished fourth in Golden Sixty’s Hong Kong Mile win.

Godolphin sends out Real World, whose two most recent performances, both on dirt, both poor, can be ignored. Real World has yet to win at the highest level but is a Group 2 winner who is 5 for 5 in grass races, including a race last July at Newbury.

Post time for the Lockinge is 10:20 a.m. Eastern. Watch and wager at DRFBets.com.