Fortin Hill opts for drop into statebred company in Brickyard
?q=100)
As Illinois racing has fallen, Indiana racing has risen, foal crops declining radically in the former, rising steadily in the latter. Illinois-bred stakes races at Hawthorne, the only Chicago-area racetrack still in business, struggle to attract enough entries just to make it onto a race card. Wednesday’s pair of $100,000 stakes at Horseshoe Indianapolis, six-furlong dirt sprints for older Indiana-breds, drew overflow fields.
The races nominally are handicaps but aren’t truly weighted as such. The Checkered Flag, restricted to females, drew 14 entrants, a dozen in the field’s main body, two on the also-eligible list. Same with the Brickyard, which came up a legitimately strong, eminently playable contest.
The Brickyard (post time 6:07 p.m. Eastern) goes as race 8, immediately following the Checkered Flag (post time 5:36 p.m.) and could have as the top two betting choices Fortin Hill and Nobody Listens.
Fortin Hill was cross-entered in the Kelly’s Landing Stakes on Saturday at Ellis Park but will ship from Kentucky for Wednesday’s start and make just his second appearance in statebred-restricted competition, trainer Paulo Lobo said. A 7-year-old, Fortin Hill was purchased at a 2-year-old auction by Larry Best’s OXO Equine for $575,000, the second-highest price ever paid for a horse sired by Mucho Macho Man. Trained earlier in his career by Chad Brown and Bill Mott, he wound up with Lobo last summer and cruised to an Indiana-bred high-end allowance victory in September. Fortin Hill most recently finished ninth in the Churchill Downs Stakes, where he faced Grade 1 competition and raced without Lasix. Down in class and back on Lasix, he’s likely to make his presence felt.
Nobody Listens has traveled an entirely different path, making 15 of his 22 career starts at Horseshoe Indianapolis, where he has amassed a 8-5-0 record. In one-turn Indiana-bred races, turf or dirt, Nobody Listens has been nearly unbeatable. Nobody Listens, who captured the 2022 Brickyard, has yet to race on dirt or in Indiana-bred company yet this year but has run three strong races, earning Beyer Speed Figures between 89 and 93.
The play, however, is Latigo, who at age 4 possesses greater upside than his two main rivals. Latigo, who only has raced at Horseshoe Indianapolis, has started in routes and on turf strictly to take advantage of Indiana-bred competition. At heart, he’s a dirt sprinter and in such races Latigo has gone 6-5-1-0. His lone loss came in an open second-level allowance on April 19 that Latigo likely needed following a six-month layoff. He returned to clear that condition May 15, and Latigo is a fresh horse with room to improve and the right stalking style to take advantage of a fast, contested pace.
Chandana might be the right horse at the right price for the Checkered Flag, in which she was second last year to Hungarian Princess. Hungarian Princess has totally lost her form, and making her first start of 2023, she finished 10th last month as the 13-10 favorite in the Shelby County Stakes, restricted to Indiana-sired fillies and mares. She’s a toss in the Checkered Flag, where Chandana is set to improve upon her fifth-place finish in a May 10 allowance race, her first race following a winter break. Used on the pace that day, Chandana runs better as a stalker and has several peak performances that would make her formidable.
Hot Little Thing ought to be a player at a shorter price. Owned by her trainer, Brian Lynch, who only got the filly this spring, Hot Little Thing is a 3-year-old who’s 4-1-1 from six starts and in her lone start against Indiana-bred sprinters won a stakes race last year by more than 14 lengths.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.