Shared Sense has class lines to take Indiana Derby

If you get the idea Art Collector is a major player in Saturday’s Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, you might have a sense Shared Sense fits the Grade 3, $300,000 Indiana Derby on Wednesday at Indiana Grand.

Art Collector got a 100 Beyer Speed Figure winning a June 13 allowance race at Churchill Downs, where Shared Sense bumped the gate at the start, settled in last of four, and found Art Collector long gone by the time he got rolling in upper stretch. Shared Sense ran along solidly to finish second, well beaten but with a career-best Beyer of 89, and with several other encouraging races behind him, he looks as likely a winner as any in the 1 1/8-mile Indiana Derby.

The race is part of Churchill Downs’s Road to the Kentucky Derby and offers 34 qualifying points distributed 20-8-4-2 to the top four finishers. A field of 10 was entered, with Winning Impression the tepid 3-1 morning-line favorite over 7-2 Major Fed and Shared Sense at 4-1. Post time for the local derby, the 11th of 12 races, is 7:45 Eastern on a six-stakes card, which also includes the Indiana Oaks, which starts at 2:20.

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Brad Cox trains Shared Sense for Godolphin, and Florent Geroux has the mount on the grinding-type colt who, if nothing else, will be suited by this 1 1/8-mile trip. By Street Sense out of Collective, by Bernardini, Shared Sense’s only finishes worse than second came in his debut last fall in a sprint at Keeneland and in a turf experiment in the May 23 War Chant. In a pair of second-place finishes last fall, Shared Sense ran into the decent colts Blackberry Wine and Lynn’s Map.

Major Fed showed plenty of promise over the winter at Fair Grounds. His second-place finish in the slower division of the Risen Star Stakes there came with a wide trip, and Major Fed was fourth in the Louisiana Derby after breaking poorly from post 1 and rallying from 14th. Major Fed finished 10th May 23 in the Matt Winn Stakes at Churchill, but wound up ridiculously wide on the first turn.

“I think you can draw a big line through that race,” trainer Greg Foley told Indiana Grand publicity. “Maybe I’m wrong. If he doesn’t run well in this one, I’d say maybe he just isn’t that type, but I don’t see that.”

James Graham takes the mount on Major Fed, who drew post 10, one stall inside Winning Impression, who was considered for the Blue Grass before his connections opted for Indiana.

“I didn’t want to overdo it with him,” said trainer Dallas Stewart. “This looks like a good spot.”

Winning Impression, another grinder, showed solid allowance-class form over the winter at Churchill and managed a fourth in the division of the Arkansas Derby won by top-level 3-year-old Charlatan. That race, his most recent, came on May 2.

“His workouts have been good and consistent, and he’s healthy. We’ll see where we are after this race,” Stewart said.

Earner, thrown into his first stakes in his fourth start by trainer Steve Asmussen, shouldn’t be ignored. He debuted against the formidable sprinter Echo Town going a six-furlong trip that is short of his best, won an Oaklawn maiden route race, and set the pace – probably not his ideal style – before finishing third in a Churchill allowance race from which the second-place finisher, Dean Martini, emerged to win the Ohio Derby.