Hoosier: Yoder taking wait-and-see approach with Indiana Sires Stakes, Woodside Charm

Trainer-driver Verlin Yoder, best known for his work with standout horses such as millionaire Natural Herbie and Dan Patch Award-winning 2-year-old filly trotter Woodside Charm, puts in his day-to-day racing work at Harrah’s Hoosier Park where a format change in the way the Indiana Sires Stakes program conducts races has occurred this year.

In previous years the Indiana Sires Stakes were run as $20,000 to $24,000 eliminations and then a $75,000 to $85,000 final for five legs, leading up to the year-end Super Final, but for 2019 a switch was made to race in divisional rounds in the run-up to the Super Final. So, for example, on Thursday night (July 25) there are two splits of the fourth round of the sire stakes for 3-year-old colt and gelding trotters that go for $95,500 in total, but divvied up into two races the purses are $48,000 and $47,500. Two-year-old male pacers are also racing in their second leg on Thursday night, with three sections worth $46,000, $46,000, and $46,500. This alteration has Yoder waiting for the stonedust to settle before evaluating how it all worked out for his bottom line.

"I don't know yet because I made pretty good money with the other (format). We won't know until the end of the year where we're at,” Yoder said. “It all depends on how many horses you have. I do know the lesser horses are getting more money. The money is being spread around more.

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"Your good horses are still going to make their money as long as you don't have five or six divisions of something; that's when it gets ugly. So it all depends on the number of horses."

One of those good horses in the Hoosier State is in Yoder’s barn, and that is the sophomore trotting colt It’s A Herbie, who races in Thursday night’s second Indiana Sires Stakes event for that group. To illustrate the point that a good horse can still make plenty of money in Indiana, in his 11 sire stakes starts prior to winning the Super Final last year, It’s A Herbie made $142,000, or $12,909 per start, and in his three sire stakes appearances so far in 2019, he’s earned $60,875, good for $20,291 a start. It’s A Herbie is eligible to the Canadian Trotting Classic later this year, which will give the horses he’s racing against now a chance to make some money while he’s out of town, something Yoder notes is prudent.

"My philosophy is if your horse is good enough to race in something else like the Grand Circuit, besides the sire stakes, then you should go race on the Grand Circuit and let the money go to the horses that are sire stakes-type horses,” remarked Yoder. “We all like to be greedy, but this way works better.”

While he’s taking a patient approach with how the sire stakes change goes for his operation, Yoder is utilizing a similar tactic with Woodside Charm. She didn’t surface to qualify until June 7 and 14 and then was second in her comeback race at Harrah’s Hoosier Park on June 26. She had to be scratched on July 17, and Yoder says an issue that came up actually made the early-season gap in her stakes schedule for the best.

"I'll race her here at Hoosier because she really doesn't have anything until September. That's the way the schedule came out for her because she wasn't eligible to anything else. I just said ‘I'll wait until late,’ and thank goodness I did because she had a foot problem,” he offered. “It seems to be under control now. It's one of those things - they lay in that foot forever, and they don't want to come out, don't want to come out, and then finally they come out. Then you just get it back to where it's functional and go. The good thing is she's jogging sound right now, so that's a plus."

For fans and followers of the affable Yoder and his superstar filly Woodside Charm, here’s hoping that Father Time makes the waiting game worthwhile on all fronts.