Fancy Liquor, Hendy Woods come out neck best in pair of turf stakes

Fancy Liquor and Hendy Woods slogged to stakes victories in turf races Wednesday at Indiana Grand.

Over a course still holding water from heavy early week rain, Fancy Liquor was a popular winner of the $150,000 Caesars Stakes, coming back in the final strides after being passed in midstretch by Juggernaut. He won by a neck, paying $6.60 to win as the favorite in this one-mile race for 3-year-olds.

While Facing Liquor and Juggernaut raced on the front end, Hendy Woods ($19.80) got up in the final stride under Declan Carroll in the $150,000 Indiana Grand, restricted to 3-year-old fillies. Rallying from ninth in the early going, Hendy Woods was patiently handled by Carroll, tipping wide at the quarter pole after saving ground and rallying down the center of the track. To her inside, Pranked won a photo for place over pacesetter Evil Lynn.

Carroll is the son of David Carroll, a former head trainer and now a leading assistant to Hendy Woods’s trainer, Mark Casse, and Kim Carroll, an exercise rider in the Casse operation. Lightly raced Hendy Woods, a Stonestreet Stables homebred by Uncle Mo out of Separate Forest, by Forestry, was making only her fourth career start. She won a maiden race and a first-level allowance during the Fair Grounds meet and was coming off an encouraging, seventh-place finish in the Grade 3 Regret Stakes, where Hendy Woods was beaten only about four lengths after breaking from post 13.

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Evil Lynn was drawn wide in the Indiana Grand but set out for the lead and stuck around to the very end. Pranked, a 24-1 shot who raced midpack, was the meat in a trifecta sandwich that paid more than $1,500 per 50-cent wager. Nasty, the mildest of favorites at 7-2, could make no impression over a laboring course many horses surely struggled to handle. Winning time for the mile was a slow 1:39.82 with the closing furlong barely run in less than 13 seconds.

Fancy Liquor required almost 13 1/2 seconds to cover the final furlong, an eternity in a six-figure turf stakes, but ran just fast enough to nip 13-1 shot Juggernaut, who tracked the pace, surged to the lead past the three-sixteenths pole, but could not hold the advantage as a game Fancy Liquor, under DeShawn Parker, stayed on for his first stakes score. Kinenos rallied mildly for third, two lengths behind Juggernaut, in a race timed in 1:39.62.

Fancy Liquor, trained by Mike Maker for Skychai Racing and Sand Dollar Stables, now has run five strong races through his five-start career. Fancy Liquor, by Lookin At Lucky out of Brandys Secret, by Secret Romeo, was a debut turf-route winner over the winter a Gulfstream before finishing a close third in the Grade 3 Jeff Ruby Steaks, a Polytrack route at Turfway. In June, he was a close second in a first-level Churchill turf allowance before finishing third, beaten a neck and a nose, in the Grade 3 Transylvania last month at Keeneland. Those were three tough beats in a row, and Wednesday, it was Fancy Liquor’s time to shine.