Well, there are two things we learned about Lookin at Lucky today: he can handle the dirt and he can handle traffic trouble. I'm glad to find out the first part, of course. The second I would have rather avoided.

In case you missed it, we won the Rebel Stakes today at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas. If you saw the race you probably thought we were finished at the quarter pole. After we got sawed off and blocked off and clipped heels with Noble's Promise, I did too. I pretty much had a second where I was like, "Great, we're going down!" But I was able to pop up out of the saddle and get him steadied and then the next few strides I just waited on him and gave him a chance to get back up on his feet. He recuperated really well and we were able to go on.

Going into the Rebel, everyone was writing about how Lookin at Lucky was getting blinkers for the first time, but it wasn't something we hadn't thought of before. We really didn't want to mess with him too much last year with the Breeders' Cup coming up but even after the Norfolk in October I was thinking he needed to have something done. We wanted time to test them out, to make sure he didn't get too rank with them and didn't lose what he does well in races. So we waited until after the Breeders' Cup and worked him a couple of times and I actually thought he worked a little better.

This horse does everything so easily and there's no way we've come near to the bottom of him yet. Part of the reason for that is because half of his attention is in the grandstand. In the Norfolk I told Bob I thought I might end up in the infield, he threw the brakes on that much in the stretch, which you can see in the replay. He made the lead and his ears went straight forward and I asked him to stay focused but he wouldn't. I tapped him with the stick a couple times, I threw a cross on him, I hollered at him, all to no effect. Then all of the sudden Pulsion started to come back on the inside and it was like he thought, "Oh, there's another horse, let me pick up the bit!" It was good and bad at the same time because he'd never been two turns and he finished that with no effort whatsoever, but at the same time I had been riding pretty hard and he really wasn't paying attention to me.

If you watch his race in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, somewhat of the same thing happened. I had a wide trip and at the three-eighths pole where I was trying to make a run, but I couldn't make up ground. I was starting to ride a bit and he really wasn't interested. I'm making a little run to the quarter pole and then we hit the stretch and it looks like I might run fourth or fifth, and I'm riding and riding and he's just kind of lackadaisical out there. But when Vale of York swings out and runs up next to him, all of the sudden it's like a different horse jumps on the bridle, and he just takes off. Too bad we missed by little more than a nose.

If you look at his past performances, he's never won by more than a length and three quarters, and the only reason he won by that much is because the other ones had gotten tired behind him. He's never run away from any of his competition and even in his maiden race, I thought I would win by five for fun, but he made the lead and just idled. I told Bob I feel like a sitting duck on him sometimes because once I get put in front, his focus level pretty much isn't there.

Now, I know the talent level is there, and I've always been really high on him. He's won six of seven races and the one he lost was by a head, so the biggest task is trying to keep him focused and I think the blinkers helped with that. Before the race I thought we were throwing a lot at him with his first time on dirt and the addition of the new equipment (little did I know he'd have to handle that rough of a trip), and he aced the test. The blinkers did what we wanted them to do and helped him focus more, just enough to the point where he keeps running in the stretch.

I kind of had to get after him a little today coming down to the wire but I think it was a combination of three things -- stumbling really hard, the fact that he hadn't run in a while, and then just his natural lackadaisical attitude. I think if he hadn't clipped heels I could have sat there as long as I wanted and wheeled out and blown right by them, but that traffic trouble took a lot out of him and it just goes to show you what a good horse he is, finishing up like that.

When we got back to the winner's circle he had one nick right below his left hind ankle but it was a like a little scratch, the kind that horses will accidentally get when they're running and hit themselves sometimes from the shoes. So it didn't look like anything really happened to him as a result of clipping heels and he felt good coming back; he was a little tired but think about if you'd run a long distance and stumbled and then had to get up and keep going strong. All-in-all I was very impressed with his whole race, and he handled the dirt well and felt very good on it.

Last year I faced the surface question with Pioneerof the Nile and we all know how that turned out, closest I've ever gotten to winning the Kentucky Derby. Those horses are a little bit alike but also a little different -- alike in the fact that they both have a nice long stride to them, but different in the fact that this horse is probably a little smarter. He's really got a lot of confidence; he walks around with more of a swagger, and he's also a laid-back kind of horse. Pioneerof the Nile was a little more nervous, you kind of had to calm him down into relaxing for you. At this time last year Pioneerof the Nile was a little taller, a little longer, but this little horse goes out there and, even doing his job halfway, he gallops around there with so much ease that you just have to feel like he could be even better than he already is.

When I first got on him at Santa Anita, when Bob had me work him, I definitely thought he could do what he did last year. When you sit on a horse like that in May, you have this idea of winning the Del Mar Futurity in September and maybe getting lucky enough to win a couple others that season and come back strong as a 3-year-old, and he fulfilled what I thought of him. You're always glad when you were right about one, and he's the one I was very high on from the get-go. This race definitely put some more experience on him and he answered all our questions, so hopefully he takes a step forward and we move on down the Derby trail from here ... if we get lucky!