Horseshoe Indianapolis races recarded after smoke-out

Smoked out on June 28, a pair of Indiana-bred sprint stakes are back on Horseshoe Indianapolis’s Wednesday racing program.

The $100,000 Brickyard and the $100,000 Checkered Flag were part of a race card canceled last week because of poor air quality resulting from Canadian wildfires. Both carded at six furlongs, the races drew nearly the same overflow fields as in their original composition. Nominally handicaps, the races 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. The Brickyard, which came up a legitimately strong, eminently playable contest went with a full field of 12.

Fortin Hill was entered in and scratched from the Kelly’s Landing Stakes on Saturday at Ellis Park to make just his second appearance in statebred-restricted competition. 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 Paulo 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.

But the play 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 had a better draw in the original Checkered Flag, though even from post 11 she still has an upset chance Wednesday. She was second in this race last year to Hungarian Princess, who also runs Wednesday but has totally lost her form and would be hard to support in the Checkered Flag. 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 fit the spot.

Hot Little Thing will be a shorter price than Chandana but is difficult to look past. 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.