CYPRESS — He Looks Hot, the 2019 American Quarter Horse Association World Champion racehorse, will soon return to his first home at Ed Allred’s Rolling A Ranch on Rocky Canyon Road in Atascadero.
He Looks Hot, an 8-year-old born and raised at Rolling A, was retired from racing last month after a remarkable career in which he won 14 of his 40 career starts. The local boy did well, earning over $1.6 million in prize money while racing exclusively at Los Alamitos Race Course in Cypress, California. He is the richest horse that Allred, who is the all-time leading owner in Quarter Horse racing, has ever raced and the first AQHA World Champion he’s campaigned on his own.
“He loves to run and we’ve had so much fun with him,” said Allred of the son of Walk Thru Fire and the mare Look Her Over. “He Looks Hot is an amazing horse. His family has been so strong. The granddam (a racing term for grandmother) had three champions and now his (mother) has a world champion in He Looks Hot.”
Walk Thru Fire is one of Quarter Horse racing all-time greatest stallions and Look Her Over won several big races for Allred during her racing career at Los Alamitos. True to his lineage, He Looks Hot has been phenomenal throughout his career. He won California’s richest Quarter Horse race of 2014 and then continued to add major wins each year from 2016 to 2019. He was awarded Quarter Horse racing’s top prize last year after winning five of 10 starts, highlighted by a win in the sport’s number one race, the $600,000 Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos Race Course on December 14.
He Looks Hot made one more start after winning the Champion of Champions before Allred and trainer Scott Willoughby decided that the horse that done more than enough on the racetrack. A week later, on the night of the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Association award banquet on Thursday, Jan. 23, Willoughby announced the champion’s retirement. He Looks Hot was awarded a couple of more titles on that night, including the PCQHRA Horse of the Year for 2019. He’s the first horse since 2015 to win the AQHA World Champion title and Horse of the Year honor in the same year. The horse retired on top of the racing world.
“We’ll now take him to the ranch and just let him be a horse,” Willoughby said.
“He’ll be in a pasture at Rolling A Ranch and he can be there for the rest of his life,” Allred said. “He can live to 35 and he’ll always have a home.”
He Looks Hot is expected to arrive at Rolling A Ranch in mid to late February. The ranch has long been home to the nation’s best Quarter Horses, but the staff can’t wait to welcome back this champion.
“We are preparing for him to come back,” said ranch manager David Martin. “For us, it shows the full circle of the ranch operation. We breed the mares, foal the mares, raise the foals, and start the horse’s training. Now we are getting ready to have the champion come back home.
“Everyone at the ranch had a hand in this,” Martin added. “From the grooms to the technicians and from ranch trainer John Creager to rest of our staff, we are all excited to see him back,” Martin added.
He Looks Hot will join a herd of over 400 Quarter Horses residing on the ranch grounds. There will be over 100 newly born weanlings and around 100 yearlings ranging between 12 to 15 months of age. Perhaps one of these young horses will one day be the next He Looks Hot accomplishing great things at Los Alamitos Race Course.
“Watching the young horses out in the pasture we get a difference perspective here,” Martin added. “I remember that He Looks Hot stood out even back then. He always had it in his heart to run. It’s been so great to watch what he’s done.”
