Weekend GamePlan: Picks for Jonathan Schuster Memorial, Cornhusker Handicap, Bowling Green
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Southeast exurban Indianapolis and northeast suburban Des Moines kinda, sorta take center stage in American racing Saturday.
I kinda, sorta wanted to push plays in the Indiana Oaks and the Indiana Derby.
Of course, Leading Change’s lone start caught the eye, but you’re supposed to play against this horse when he goes off the 6-5 favorite in the Indiana Derby. But I couldn’t decide between Our Moneyman and Creole Chrome – or even if I wanted to oppose Leading Change.
Betty’s Pearl can topple Prom Queen in the Indiana Oaks, but don’t be surprised if she challenges the beatable favorite for favoritism.
Jonathan Schuster Memorial
Vote No was awful late last summer at Kentucky Downs and turned in a similarly poor performance over the winter at Fair Grounds. The other four of his last six races? All excusable.
In the United Nations he raced too far behind a slow pace and in the stretch run dove to the inside going past the chute that joins up with the main track – a move that nearly never works at Monmouth.
In the Sword Dancer, a horse who best suits closing or stalking tactics went up and set a very strong pace, a truly bizarre tactical calculation.
In the Louisville, won by the excellent Burnham Square, Vote No raced too far behind a slow pace.
In the Cape Henlopen last out he found compromising trouble.
I save the Henry Clark for last because, to me, it’s the race most pertinent to this one, just a half-furlong shorter than the Schuster.
Vote No won the 2025 Cape Henlopen at 1 1/2 miles and has done good work in three-turn racing, but I’d posit he better suits two turns and a middle distance. This is a horse who showed sprinter-miler speed during the early phase of his career, before current connections claimed him, and take a look at his first race after the claim. That was a one-mile allowance over the Horseshoe grass course. Vote No displayed a powerful turn of foot and won easily.
You could not draw up a much worse trip than the Henry Clark, and after all he’d encountered, the horse came zinging home, finishing fastest, a quietly strong showing that suggests if things finally go right for Vote No, he’ll win the Schuster at a fair price.
Cornhusker Handicap
Steve Asmussen has trained the winner of the Prairie Meadows Cornhusker three times and more often than not has a runner for the race. I strongly suspect he has aimed Gigante toward this mark for a couple months, and I strongly suspect Gigante can hit the target.
Six-year-old Gigante has been a good horse since he made the races at 2 – far from a great horse, but good from the very start. His career has centered on turf racing, but go through it closely and you’ll find enough dirt success to imagine Gigante’s top race on dirt at least comes close to his best on turf. Go a step further: From what we saw in May, Gigante right now might hit a higher level on dirt than turf.
He outclassed allowance foes when switched to the main track May 3, a race that in retrospect looks like a prep for the Steve Sexton Mile. Gigante probably was supposed to win the Sexton. He ran well to finish third after finding persistent, compromising traffic from the three-sixteenths pole to the sixteenth marker.
Did Asmussen run him back on turf June 27 because he wanted Gigante to resume his grass-racing career? Doubt it. The horse was held up at the back of the field and allowed to make one run from the three-sixteenths pole to the wire – to me, it was a prep for this return to dirt.
Bowling Green
Morning-line favorite Fort George looks . . . fine. Nothing special. Sure, he was second to Rebel’s Romance in Dubai, but Rebel’s Romance toyed with him and there was nothing else in that race.
There’s no real pace signed on here. Ole Crazy Bone, who surely has Kentucky Downs as his main target, could wind up setting the pace. Minaret Station ought to race in close attendance, and this is the race his connections have targeted for a couple of months.
Minaret Station finished well in his 2026 debut and even better last out, both times at a two-turn trip that will prove short of his best. Lightly raced and with far more upside than his two main rivals, he’s likely to bowl home a winner Saturday at Saratoga.
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