Cox taking his time deciding where to run Encino
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Trainer Brad Cox has three older male horses for two stakes races Saturday at Horseshoe Indianapolis.
Wadsworth runs in the $100,000 Jonathan Schuster Memorial, provided the race remains on turf, while Instant Replay starts in the $100,000 Michael G. Schaefer over one mile and 70 yards on dirt. Cox entered Encino, a utility player, in both races, and while Encino won the Schuster last summer, Cox said earlier this week that he’d wait as long as he could to pick a spot for the 5-year-old gelding.
“I don’t know. I need to see the scratches and think about it,” Cox said.
Wadsworth and Encino both campaign for Godolphin. Six-year-old Wadsworth last raced on the Horseshoe Indianapolis turf course three years and two months ago, missing by a nose in the Caesars Stakes when he was on the way to becoming a very good middle-distance turf horse. Two 14-month layoffs later, Wadsworth seeks his first win since August 2023 and looms an underlay with Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard.
Encino beat Wadsworth a neck when the they finished fourth and fifth, respectively, on May 21 in a Churchill Downs turf allowance. Encino was a comfortable winner of the 2025 Schuster, albeit over just four foes.
Both horses that trainer Kelsey Danner entered in the Schuster might hold more appeal, though Baby Max drew poorly in post 10. Vote No breaks from the rail under Luis Saez, gets a potentially favorable cutback in distance from 1 1/2 to 1 1/16 miles, and aced his lone start over the local lawn.
In the Schaefer, Instant Replay makes the second start of his 4-year-old season after being cleverly managed to three six-figure stakes wins while earning a half-million dollars for owners Gary and Mary West as a third-tier 3-year-old. He was very much against an inside speed bias trying to rally wide in the Indiana Derby a year ago at Horseshoe and stands to improve off a local allowance comeback win June 3 – regardless of what subsequent workouts might suggest.
“He’s always been a better afternoon horse than morning horse,” Cox said.
Bendoog has proven a good enough afternoon horse to merit his 3-1 morning-line favoritism in the Schaefer, though for all the strong races he’s put forth, both in Dubai and America, Bendoog never has won a stakes.
Neither has First Division, but this is a 4-year-old with only 11 outings who makes his first start since April and first for trainer Whit Beckman. An Indiana-bred, First Division returned this past December from a half-year layoff a considerably faster horse than he’d been earlier in 2025. On April 9, in his most recent race, he turned in a career-best, cruising to a second-level allowance score at Oaklawn Park.
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Subsequent workout video since First Division joined Beckman’s barn suggests he retains that form. Breezing May 30 at Churchill, First Division officially went a half-mile in 49.80 seconds, but by far the best part of that drill was the gallop-out, during which he pulled well clear of his workmate, the stakes-class performer Stowaway. First Division has come back with two more breezes and could post a minor upset.
Indiana General Assembly
One can understand why connections late last summer thought that Miwa was best suited grass races at 1 1/4 miles or longer. Making her first start for trainer Joe Sharp, and her fourth since coming to America from France, Miwa won a 1 5/16-mile Kentucky Downs allowance race by seven lengths – a strong performance, and a red herring.
“I think we kind of learned she doesn’t want to go a real long distance,” said Sharp, who trains Miwa for the Repole Stable.
Miwa races 1 1/16 miles Saturday at Horseshoe Indianapolis in the $100,000 Indiana General Assembly Distaff, and if she improves much at all upon her 2026 debut, she’ll win. Miwa, as many horses do at Kentucky Downs, came back one week after her allowance win in the rich Ladies Marathon and finished a solid third. In October, she ran flat in the 1 1/2-mile Dowager at Keeneland before capping her campaign with a dud in the 1 1/8-mile Cardinal at Churchill.
“She was like, ‘I’ve done enough for the year, guys,’ ” Sharp said. “But coming back fresh, she was really giving us a lot of confidence.”
Miwa returned to action June 13 in a one-mile, third-level Churchill turf allowance and appeared to be too far behind a slow pace at the three-furlong marker. She whipped home in a 22.09 second final quarter-mile and won going away.
Charlene’s Dream could prove Miwa’s toughest foe, but who knows where she is right now? A winner last summer of the Grade 2 Beverly D., Charlene’s Dream returned from a winter break with an 11th-place finish April 12 at Keeneland in the 5 1/2-furlong Giant’s Causeway and hasn’t raced since.
◗ The $100,000 Marie Hulman George for older fillies and mares over 1 1/16 miles on dirt is the weak link in Saturday’s open-stakes races. The race drew a field of 12, and if stretch-out sprinter Kapoor makes a clear lead, she might not come back.
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