Harrodsburg would benefit from wet surface in Louisville Thoroughbred Society Stakes
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Probably the only way Harrodsburg can beat Built in the Louisville Thoroughbred Society Stakes is if it rains Saturday at Churchill Downs.
Good news for the Harrodsburg camp: As of Thursday, there was close to a 70 percent chance of showers and, possibly, a thunderstorm or two throughout Saturday in Louisville.
Harrodsburg’s wet-track chances aren’t just theoretical: He and Built met in Harrodsburg’s most recent race, the Bango on June 27, with Harrodsburg setting the pace under Luis Saez, who has a return call, and holding off Built by a half-length.
Built came back a month later and won the Grade 2 Alfred G. Vanderbilt at Saratoga by 2 1/2 lengths. Favored at 6-5, Built was a fairly late addition to the Vanderbilt, jumping into the fray when trainer Wayne Catalano and owner Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners realized no divisional standouts would show up for the race.
That’s in part because, currently, with Book’em Danno sidelined, there are no divisional standouts. The five highest Beyer Speed Figures in six- to seven-furlong races in North America this year belong to a pair of 3-year-olds, Englishman and Deep Flame; the Japanese horse T O Elvis; and two females, Grand Job and Eclatant. Built sat out the Grade 1 Forego at Saratoga, won by Hymn, a horse who would never run in a Grade 1 and had made his graded stakes debut in the Vanderbilt, handily defeated by Built.
And so Built, with sprint Beyers this year of 106, 105, 103, and 100, is about as good as the division gets at the moment, and on a fast track, drawn outside Harrodsburg – with Flavien Prat taking over for the injured Irad Ortiz Jr. – Built likely wins the 6 1/2-furlong, $300,000 Thoroughbred Society.
Harrodsburg, though, is truly a mud lark. His sloppy-track debut three Aprils ago at Keeneland yielded a 5 1/2-length victory, and when, in his next start, he was dropped in for a $50,000 claiming price, trainer Michael Tomlinson, acting on behalf of owners Rod and Bud Hatfield, claimed him.
The claim has proven incredibly successful generally speaking, and if Harrodsburg only ran on wet tracks, it would stand as an all-timer. In June 2025, before Harrodburg really found himself, he somehow lost a Churchill allowance race despite earning a 107 Beyer over a sloppy track. Back from a six-month layoff in May, Harrodsburg again landed on a sloppy Churchill surface and won an allowance race with a 102, which led to his Bango.
Tomlinson gave Harrodsburg a summer break by design, targeting this race. Track surface helps, for sure, but Tomlinson said Harrodsburg has improved immeasurably in the mental-health department since joining his stable. The horse especially acted up in pre-race activities, often leaving his race in the paddock, but Tomlinson said his crew had adapted to Harrodsburg’s quirks, and the horse had responded in kind.
The other entrants are Here Mi Song, Jack’s Promise, Cat On Time, Echo Again, Dreaminblue, and Keep It Easy. Only Cat On Time has a recent performance that might put him in the mix.
The Louisville Thoroughbred Society comes down to Built and Harrodsburg – and how that ends depends on how much rain comes down.
Open Mind Stakes
Usha probably will be bet in the $300,000 Open Mind Stakes like she’s been turning in performances clearly superior to her rivals. She has not been. And drawn on the rail, with the prospect of rain turning the Churchill track wetter than she would prefer, Usha might prove the most vulnerable favorite in the five-stakes sequence Saturday at Churchill.
Flavien Prat taking a return call for trainer Bob Baffert probably cements Usha as the favorite, but she has thrown two duds in a row since eking out a May 26 win in the Winning Colors at Churchill. Usha is a natural seven-furlong horse competing in a six-furlong race.
Baffert’s second entrant, Cash Call, also has a French jockey, Florent Geroux, and rates as good a chance as Usha. Cash Call stretched out to a 1 1/2-turn mile Aug. 9 at Ellis Park and simply didn’t stay the trip in the Groupie Doll. And in the six-furlong Twin Bridges at Ellis, she proved no match late for Kilwin, a Grade 1 winner last year, and second in her start following the Twin Bridges, in the Grade 1 Ballerina.
Cash Call might or might not have enough speed to make the lead from an inside draw, but an outside post gives Modo’s jockey, Luis Saez, options. Modo possesses plenty of early gas, but if any of the quasi-front-runners to her inside make a hard drive to the front, she’ll have no problem stalking the pace.
Seven were entered in the Open Mind, but Look Forward also went into a Sunday allowance race, and as of Thursday, trainer Michael McCarthy wasn’t certain where she would run.
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