Fireball Baby seeks Hoosier Heartland repeat off long layoff

If trainer Phil Bauer could win 6 of 13 starts at the ultra-tough Saratoga meeting, which ended earlier this month, he surely could have Fireball Baby ready for the $100,000 Hoosier Heartland Stakes on Wednesday at Horseshoe Indianapolis, the mare’s first race since October 2021.

Could have her ready – but might not. Bauer, private trainer for Rigney Racing, has three winners over the last five years with horses returning from a layoff of a half-year or longer, but his record with such layoff horses in dirt routes is 8-0-2-1.

Fireball Baby, a Rigney homebred, has made a great living at Horseshoe Indianapolis, where she’s banked more than a half-million dollars and won seven races, among them the 2021 renewal of the 1 1/16-mile Hoosier Heartland, restricted to Indiana-bred fillies and mares who are by Indiana-registered stallions.

:: DRF Bets members get FREE DRF Past Performances - Formulator or Classic. Join now!

The Hoosier Heartland goes as race 8, immediately preceded by the $100,000 Empire, run at the same distance and under the same conditions but without a sex restriction. The stakes action starts at 5:36 p.m. Eastern, with first post for the card scheduled for 2:30 p.m.

Fireball Baby returned from a 10-week break to win the Hoosier Heartland last September by more than five lengths. The mare recorded her first workout of 2022 back on June 4, and while she’s had a couple gaps in her breeze pattern, Fireball Baby has gotten in 11 drills for the Hoosier Heartland. Her regular rider Marcelino Pedroza takes the mount, and Fireball Baby is drawn well enough in post 7.

Pretty Assets, second in this race a year ago, has post 12, a tough spot with a short run to the first turn, while Diamond Solitaire has been disappointing this year during her 4-year-old campaign and Hungarian Princess is a sprinter trying to stay a route. The longer one looks, the less concerning Fireball Baby’s layoff feels.

The Empire drew nine entrants and appears to be a wide-open contest. Max Express is the 7-2 morning-line favorite, despite the fact he’s been blanked in four starts this season, is winless over his last nine starts, and prefers turf to dirt.

Starspangledexpress could wind up the chalk. He was second, a place ahead of Max Express, in the 2021 Empire, and jockey Samuel Bermudez might be able to make the lead and control the pace from an inside draw. Starspangledexpress made his 2022 debut sprinting in July, turning in a flat performance, but in his second start this season, on Sept. 7, he set a tepid pace and held second in an open first-level allowance around two turns on dirt.

Three-year-old Mr Chaos gets only a couple pounds from his older rivals. He has been second in his two dirt-route tries and has greater upside than the more senior members of this group.