Hot Little Thing will bring the heat in Back Home Again Stakes

Hot Little Thing is the fastest 2-year-old, male or female, in two Indiana-bred dirt-sprint stakes carded Wednesday at Horseshoe Indianapolis.

Hot Little Thing in her career debut finished second after a poor start from an outside post to Bluelightspecial, whom she faces again Wednesday. She returned to win an open maiden sprint Aug. 6 by seven lengths. The 71 Beyer Speed Figure that performance produced tops not only the $100,000 Back Home Again for fillies, in which Hot Little Thing starts, but is a higher figure than any of the colts and geldings in the $100,000 Circle City Stakes has earned.

With that in mind, Hot Little Thing should be a shorter price than her 7-2 morning-line odds suggest. She moves for the first time into statebred-restricted competition and since her maiden win has logged a pair of Keeneland workouts for trainer Rodolphe Brisset. Alex Achard, aboard for her first two starts, has the mount on Hot Little Thing, a speedy daughter of the hot first-crop sire Army Mule.

Bluelightspecial ran back Aug. 11 in an Indiana-bred allowance race, overcoming post 1 with a professional rally between horses to win by a half-length. Several behind her that day run back, but the second choice – and even the possible favorite – probably is Corningstone.

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Trained by Kenny McPeek, Corningstone is a three-race maiden (a fourth start at Saratoga was declared no-contest) who cuts back from a pair of route races and is back on dirt after racing on turf in New York. The filly’s first two races were dirt sprints, and both fit the Back Home Again.

In her debut, Corningstone finished second behind Just Cindy, who returned to win the Schuylerville at Saratoga, and Corningstone faced open stakes horses second time out, finishing third in the Prairie Gold Lassie.

The Circle City, at six furlongs like the Back Home Again, has but one entrant among 14 with more than a maiden win to his credit. That’s Bruster Justice, an easy winner over 4 1/2 furlongs in his June 22 career debut, and home by more than four lengths two months later in an Indiana-bred allowance race.

Bruster Justice pressed the pace in his first start and led in his second, a 5 1/2-furlong dash, and he might struggle to stay six furlongs setting a pressured pace. Debut winners Spotonjustice and Fierce Justice might have more room to improve Wednesday, while Healing Waters, second to Bruster Justice in the Aug. 11 allowance race, adds blinkers and might prefer six furlongs to the two shorter sprints in which he raced.