Hoosier Philly brings big rep

NEW ORLEANS – Someone has made a Twitter account bearing her name, and in the most recent Kentucky Derby Future Wager, Hoosier Philly closed at 11-1, second choice among individual horses. Three for three at age 2, a ridiculously easy winner each time, Hoosier Philly brings the hype to her 3-year-old debut Saturday at Fair Grounds in the Grade 2, $300,000 Rachel Alexandra Stakes.

You’ll feel like a fool betting against her if Hoosier Philly does what many expect her to do. You might feel like an even bigger one if you take the miniscule price and she loses.

The filly, a lanky gray model by super-sire Into Mischief and out of a mare by super-sire Tapit, won’t set you hyperbolizing through her mere presence. She doesn’t possess brilliant early speed and brings a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 81, pedestrian by star standards, into her comeback. What Hoosier Philly does have is push-button acceleration. She has won with so much left in the tank, it’s fair to wonder if the tank is enormous.

Tom Amoss, who trains Hoosier Philly for Gold Standard, wears his admiration for the filly on his sleeve. He’s told anyone who asks that the horse is special, comfortably comparable to Serengeti Empress, who won the 2019 Rachel Alexandra for Amoss and went on to capture the Kentucky Oaks. Serengeti Empress raced in November of her 2-year-old season, got a winter break, and had but three timed workouts before the Rachel Alexandra. Hoosier Philly enters on the same path, right down to the work pattern. Amoss expects her to improve next month in the Fair Grounds Oaks. The betting public expects her to win Saturday.

The 1 1/16-mile Rachel Alexandra, which has yielded a bounty of Kentucky Oaks winners, is no walkover. Five others start, all of them at least competent, and Chop Chop can post a mild upset.

Chop Chop won her first two races on turf, finished a close second to champion filly Wonder Wheel in the Grade 1 Alcibiades, threw in a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies clunker, and rebounded here last month in the Silverbulletday Stakes. Chop Chop and her Brad Coxtrained stablemate The Alys Look crushed everyone else in the Silverbulletday, but after drawing even with The Alys Look in upper stretch, Chop Chop was turned away. She might’ve gotten a little tired making her first start in a couple of months, but Cox had seen Chop Chop hang late in previous starts. Thus, he adds blinkers.

“She gets to the last horse and idles. It’s not to add any speed; it’s for late in the race. I have no idea if it’ll work,” Cox said.

Hoosier Philly beat Pretty Mischievous and Knock your socks off off by more than five lengths last November in the Grade 2 Golden Rod Stakes. Both try her again, late-running Knock your socks off starting for the first time since the Golden Rod, and Pretty Mischievous coming off a smart Dec. 26 win here in the Untapable. While trainer Brendan Walsh believes Pretty Mischievous is meaningfully better now than when she last met Hoosier Philly, she might not be better enough.

Miracle makes her first start outside New York-bred competition while on a trainer change to Todd Pletcher. She either leads or presses raildrawn Vahva and has trained well for her two-turn debut, working a couple times with highly regarded Julia Shining, Pletcher said.

Vahva stumbled terribly at the start of the Untapable, losing all chance. Now she might be running into a filly, Hoosier Philly, who is terribly good.