Lookin At Lee Wins Ellis Park Juvenile as Churchill two-year-old form continues to hold

The Churchill Downs two-year-olds have done well beyond the Twin Spires this summer, and that continued on Saturday at Ellis Park where Lookin At Lee won the $75,000 Ellis Park Juvenile.

Don Nelson’s Lookin At Lee made his career debut on June 11 at Churchill for trainer Steve Asmussen, finishing fifth to stablemate Tap It Tapizar. He shipped west to Ellis, and assistant trainer Christy Hamilton said he is fulfilling her expectations for him.

“He races like he trains,” she said. “He’s relaxed, but he finishes well. He had been training with me [at Indiana Grand], but we had confidence in him to start him at Churchill.”

Filly Caroline Test set the pace, and looked to spurt away from the field on the far turn, but jockey Albin Jimenez edged closer and closer aboard Lookin At Lee and finally reeled in the filly in the final yards.

“At the three-eighths I thought she might get away from us, but at the quarter pole I knew we had her,” Hamilton said.

“She ran huge,” trainer Ben Colebrook said of Beverly Anderson’s and Edward Seltzer’s homebred filly. “She never stopped running.”

Nelson bought Lookin At Lee for $70,000 at the 2015 Keeneland September yearling sale. Ray Hanson bred the Lookin At Lucky colt in Kentucky out of the graded stakes-placed Langfuhr mare Langara Lass. Hamilton said a stakes at Churchill Downs could be next.

“That’s up to Steve [Asmussen] and the owner [Nelson],” she said.

Lookin At Lee was racing back on just 15 days off his maiden score, but Hamilton said she thought the added furlong would help since he was sharp and had already worked back off his first victory.