Golden Rod favorite Hoosier Philly has Amoss thinking big

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Tom Amoss has been winning races for more than 35 years, so when he says things like “never had one like her,” people are inclined to listen very closely.

“This is by far the toughest field she’s faced so far, but we’re looking forward to that challenge,” Amoss said of Hoosier Philly, the solid favorite Saturday in the co-featured Golden Rod Stakes at Churchill Downs. “We’re comfortable with whatever the conditions might be.”

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Amoss, whose 4,000-plus career wins include the 2019 Kentucky Oaks with Serengeti Empress, began spewing superlatives in the direction of Hoosier Philly after the gray daughter of Into Mischief won the Rags to Riches with devastating ease on the first Stars of Tomorrow card of the Churchill fall meet. That Oct. 30 race followed a similarly impressive debut in September.

Hoosier Philly, with Edgar Morales riding from post 4, will face nine other fillies in the Grade 2, $400,000 Golden Rod, a 1 1/16-mile race that directly precedes the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes as race 10 (5:27 p.m. Eastern) on an all-2-year-old program. The Golden Rod offers qualifying points on a revised scale of 10-4-3-2-1 to the top five finishers toward the 2023 Oaks.

Aside from T Max, a distant second in the Rags to Riches, probably the top upset threats to Hoosier Philly are American Rockette, Pretty Mischievous, and Knockyoursocksoff.

American Rockette was scratched from the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies because of a minor illness.

“She’s got some punch if things set up for her,” said trainer Bill Mott. “We’re eager to get her around two turns.”

Pretty Mischievous, like Hoosier Philly, is unbeaten in two starts. Knockyoursocksoff is the wild card of the group, having raced exclusively on grass.

Another consideration is Pure Pauline, whose dead-heat victory with her stablemate Grand Entrance in an Oct. 20 maiden route at Keeneland was the first of its kind in the Hall of Fame career of her trainer, Todd Pletcher. One more is Defining Purpose, a last-out maiden winner wheeling back on just eight days’ rest for Kenny McPeek. “She’s got a world of talent,” said McPeek.

The Golden Rod, first run in 1910, long has been a launching pad for top fillies, including such greats as Chris Evert (1973), Silverbulletday (1998), and Rachel Alexandra (2008).

Sprint stakes on tap

Before the Golden Rod and KJC, a pair of $200,000 sprint stakes for 2-year-olds will be run.

The first of those is the Fern Creek (race 7) for fillies, which figures to have one of the biggest favorites of the entire card in Key of Life, whose back-to-back romps last month at Keeneland figure to make her an odds-on choice for trainer Brad Cox. Florent Geroux has a return call on Key of Life, who will face just five other fillies in the 6 1/2-furlong race.

“She’s fast,” co-owner Staton Flurry said of Key of Life after the daughter of Mo Town wired the Oct. 28 Myrtlewood. “We’ll keep her sprinting as long as she keeps doing things like this.”

The Great Maybe and Twirled look like the chief upset threats to Key of Life, although they and the other three starters are all still eligible for first-level allowances.

The Ed Brown (race 9), for either sex, presents a more difficult handicapping challenge. Frosted Departure and Top Recruit both own the highest Beyer Speed Figure, 86, in a field of seven, but both have been soundly defeated in their two races since earning that number. If they don’t rebound here, this 6 1/2-furlong race could fall any number of ways, with the Steve Asmussen-trained Powerful perhaps meriting a mulligan for his last-out drubbing at 48-1 in the Breeders’ Futurity.

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