The betting market can’t quite seem to wrap what passes for a collective brain around this fact: Mad House is a very fast high-level sprinter. In September, he won the Grade 2 Gallant Bob, his fourth straight open-lengths victory, at 23-1. In November, Mad House brought forth a red herring, 14th at 31-1 in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, which helped boost his price to 9-1 when, on April 11, Mad House captured the Grade 3 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap at Oaklawn Park. Listed at 7-2 on the morning line, Mad House is the third choice Saturday at Churchill Downs in the Grade 3, $275,000 Aristides Stakes, a six-furlong dirt race that drew seven entrants, among them 9-5 morning-line favorite Roll On Big Joe – the same horse Mad House turned back to win the Count Fleet by a half-length. Roll On Big Joe conceded five pounds to the winner. Trainer Bob Hess doesn’t believe that mattered. “I’m not really a big weight guy. We got beat on the square,” Hess said. In the Count Fleet, Roll On Big Joe stalked Mad House’s pace and attacked at the head of the homestretch, drawing alongside. :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. “I thought we were going to win, but he fended us,” Hess said. “But Joe is an awesome horse. He loves Churchill, he’s better than ever, and hopefully this time he kicks Mad House’s butt.” Roll On Big Joe only emerged as a horse of this quality about 15 months ago, cementing his position as one of North America’s top dirt sprinters by winning five out of eight starts before the Count Fleet, his last four races yielding triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures. Yet Roll On Big Joe is a 6-year-old with 31 starts, Mad House just a 4-year-old with a dozen races. Moreover, Mad House spent the early part of his career trying to figure out the racing game. At first, he did not even know how to muster his ample early speed, and once he began deploying it, Mad House tended to run like a mad horse, basically going as fast as he could as far as he could. Even then, Mad House showed an ability to carry that speed three-quarters of a mile. “He’s taking the pressure a lot better now in everything he does,” said David Van Winkle, who added that Mad House is the best horse he’s laid hands on during a training career that began in 1989. The Gallant Bob marked Van Winkle’s first graded stakes win. “He’s grown up a lot this year. I don’t know how to explain the Breeders’ Cup, but he was only a 3-year-old. We’d like to get back there again.” Paco Lopez rode Mad House in the Count Fleet and has gone 2 for 2 on the gelding. Lopez tends to let speed horses go about their business, staying out of their way – a good fit for Mad House. Bob Baffert sends out a pair of 4-year-olds: Madaket Road drummed lesser allowance foes May 9, while Cornucopian, the 5-2 morning-line second choice, exits a tepid fifth in the Grade 1 Churchill Downs Stakes. Cornucopian runs six furlongs for the first time since his debut in February 2025, and in five subsequent starts has never come back to the 101 Beyer he earned in that race. He stands a far better chance than last year’s Aristides winner, Durante, but if Mad House breaks running from the rail and continues his ascent, no one will catch him – regardless of his odds. Shawnee Perhaps Immersive has failed to meaningfully improve since winning a Breeders' Cup race and an Eclipse Award as champion juvenile filly of 2024 because, even as a 4-year-old, she still is not fully applying herself during races. Take the Distaff Stakes on April 4 at Aqueduct. Favored at 7-10 while making her first start since September, Immersive was off the bridle and under a ride before even hitting the turn. Was she done? She was not. Immersive gained ground on the winner, Grammy Girl, from the furlong pole to the wire, finishing decently for second and galloping out even better than she finished. “It was an odd race to watch,” said Brad Cox, who trains Immersive for her breeder, Godolphin. “She ran the same way winning the Breeders’ Cup. Anyway, that was just a race to get her going again.” Immersive, from the appearance of recent morning workout video, does look like a mare going the right way into the Grade 2, $300,000 Shawnee Stakes on Saturday. A win would mark her first graded-stakes tally since the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. Six other older fillies and mares were entered in the 1 1/16-mile Shawnee, but 6-5 morning-line favorite Splendora will be scratched, trainer Bob Baffert told Daily Racing Form’s Brad Free this week. Immersive breaks from the outside and has Irad Ortiz Jr. in the saddle for the first time. Even in a maintenance-like half-mile drill April 8 at Churchill, Immersive looked like a more mature, more powerful version of the horse who made only three starts last year. “She is. She’s training very well,” Cox said. Trainer Brendan Walsh sends out Miss Justify, who exceeded expectations finishing fourth at 19-1 in the La Troienne on May 1, and Gin Gin, who failed to live up to expectations when seventh at 5-2 in the Grade 3 Doubledogdare on April 17 at Keeneland. “I don’t know what to expect from her,” Walsh said. “She likes Keeneland and she’d been training very well into that race. She broke a little slow, and things didn’t quite go her way – maybe she’s the kind of horse where that really throws her off her game.” Expect jockey Luis Saez to put Gin Gin – second in this race a year ago – right into the game after breaking from the rail. Miss Justify, who was making her first start since June and first for Walsh in the La Troienne, also has pace, though, distance-wise, she might top out as a miler. Majestic Oops exits the best race, the Grade 1 Apple Blossom, where she finished a distant third behind the late Claret Beret. She makes her first start for trainer Phil D’Amato after former trainer Dan Ward took a job as Churchill assistant to Bob Baffert, and four of her five wins the last two calendar years came at Oaklawn, site of the Apple Blossom. ◗ Saturday's card will feature a $79,180 carryover in the late pick five after the bet went unsolved Friday. The sequence begins in race 7 (post: 3:53 p.m. Eastern) and consists of five Grade 3 stakes. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.