Indy N Roses could be key in mandatory-payout pick five

Indy N Roses won Fonner Park’s seventh race on Tuesday, April 7, at odds of 18-1, easily the longest shot in a pick five sequence that attracted $3.6 million in new wagers. That’s a tsunami of money flowing into the Fonner Park pool: During its entire 2019 meeting, Fonner handled $3.9 million on live races.

Fonner Park’s late pick five is a jackpot bet, paying to a single winning ticket, but with the pool at more than $355,000, Fonner made April 7 a mandatory-payout day. Entering Tuesday's card, $360,320 sat in the pick five jackpot, and Fonner has announced Tuesday as another pick five mandatory-payoff day.

Look who’s back: Indy N Roses is entered in race 8, penultimate leg of the pick five. She won’t be 18-1 on Tuesday but looks like a major player in the highest-class contest on a nine-race card. In fact, Indy N Roses is listed as the 5-2 morning-line favorite, one of 10 entrants in a nonwinners-of-four allowance race open to $10,000 claimers and carded for six furlongs around two turns.

Indy N Roses might not be quite so short a price Tuesday but surely shouldn’t have been 18-1 two weeks ago. Indy N Roses, trained by Stetson Mitchell, lost by more than eight lengths in each of her first two Fonner starts this season, but those four-furlong races – short of her best distance – were little more than tighteners for more suitable spots. Five-year-old Indy N Roses meaningfully bumped up her performance level during her 4-year-old campaign, and her connections appear to have realized she’s a better horse tracking the pace than leading, as she did in a pair of third-place finishes at this same class level about a year ago at Fonner. Indy N Roses got a strong pace at which to run in her most recent start, and there’s plenty of speed again Tuesday. Jockey Dakota Wood, aboard last out, figures to sit a stalking trip, pouncing on the pace and getting first run on deeper closers.

Shady Lane made her Fonner debut in February and is locally unbeaten in three starts, but she’s a one-dimensional speed horse, where Indy N Roses has more tactical versatility.

Race 7, a $3,500 claimer, has Senator Robert, another last-out winner ridden by Wood, who can notch back-to-back victories after splitting horses at the three-sixteenths marker April 8 to win a $2,500 claimer. This 7-year-old iron horse made 21 starts during 2019 and should have little trouble doubling up peak performances on short rest. Connections for years campaigned him as a two-turn middle-distance type, but Senator Robert prefers racing as a stalking sprinter, as he does Tuesday.

In race 6, one either focuses on the three logical contenders, Chace B a Lady, Franki D Oro, and Waca Waca Waca, or casts as wide a net as possible.

Big Hearted Factor is the 5-2 morning-line favorite in race 5, first of the sequence, and while post 10 does not come with any obvious disadvantage in Fonner 6 1/2-furlong races, Big Hearted Factor’s chief attribute in this $2,500 claimer is a class drop. This looks like a prime spot to fish for a price to start the pick five.

Thunder Box and Big Egypt are likely the top two choices in race 9 and both should be used, but Auctioneer, fresh off a Fonner maiden win in which he added blinkers, could be the lone controlling speed in this one-mile test.