Repeat win in Cornhusker for Cornishman won't come at a price this time

Cornishman sprang a $30.40 upset in the 2025 edition of the Grade 3, $300,000 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap. Did his connections expect such an effort?

“No,” trainer Dan McFarlane said, looking back. “I really had no clue.”

Expectations are higher as Cornishman returns for Saturday night’s Cornhusker even though he will be facing last-out graded stakes winners Navajo Warrior and Heroic Move – the latter looking to avenge a runner-up effort by just a neck last summer at Prairie Meadows.

The Cornhusker is the centerpiece, and the richest single race, of the two-day Iowa Festival of Racing. Four stakes Friday night and another four Saturday are worth a combined $1.275 million.

Cornishman, owned by Joe Schumer, is seeking to become the third two-time winner of the Cornhusker, first run in 1966. Vale of Tears won a division when the race was split in 1968, then won again the following year. Joey Bob won in 1972 and 1973. The race was run at AK-Sar-Ben until the track closed in 1995.

The 2025 Cornhusker was the first stakes victory for Cornishman, a 5-year-old Curlin gelding who is in good form. He has won three of his last four races, with back-to-back stakes wins. After taking the Bosselman Pump and Pantry/Gus Fonner Stakes on April 25 at Fonner Park in Nebraska, he won the Jim and Sandra Rasmussen Stakes on June 13 at Prairie Meadows.

“He’s training really well, as good as he ever has,” McFarlane said. “I think he likes an off track a little bit, and I see there might be some rain this weekend. He’s had two nice works since his last race, and is working super.”

Schumer and McFarlane have another Cornhusker entrant in Spenard, who is looking for his first stakes win following a local allowance victory on June 19. The stable acquired both Cornishman and Spenard at the 2024 Keeneland November horses of racing age sale from prominent programs. Cornishman was bred by Godolphin and Spenard by the Whitney Stables.

Heroic Move comes into his rematch with Cornishman off a repeat victory in the Grade 3 Steve Sexton Mile at Lone Star Park for trainer Robertino Diodoro. In the process, he defeated another Cornhusker entrant, as graded stakes-winning millionaire Gigante finished third. Gigante has done the majority of his work on turf, but has won four of six dirt starts, including two off-the-turf stakes wins.

Navajo Warrior has won five of seven starts since being privately purchased and shifted to Saffie Joseph Jr. last summer. He set a tepid pace on a track where it paid to be forwardly placed while winning the Grade 3 Pimlico Special in May at Laurel Park. Another Cornhusker entrant, graded stakes-placed San Siro, was third.

Stakes-placed Render Judgment appears to be rounding back into form nicely off a layoff, and enters off an allowance win at Churchill Downs. Touchy, who comes off a series of allowance placings in Kentucky, has not won since taking the Grade 3 Bob Hope in fall 2024 in California. Last-out maiden-claiming winner Spellmaker completes the field of nine.