Hirsch Jacobs: Listen Here in softer

Listen Here has not been able to handle graded stakes company this year, so he is dropping into a softer spot and shortening up to six furlongs in the $100,000 Hirsch Jacobs Stakes, for 3-year-old sprinters, the ninth race on the card.

Listen Here has lost four straight since beginning his career with three victories. He most recently was third in the Withers Stakes, a race in which Shah Jehan was second.

Local sprinters It's A Monster and No Pressure, both coming off victories at Pimlico, will be waiting in ambush for Listen Here, but another colt who could prove formidable is Boston Common. He comes off a runaway victory that marked his first start since exiting what now look like the key races of the spring: the two races Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem won at Sportsman's Park.