Trainer Brad Cox has feasted on the supporting stakes on Indiana Derby Day, winning two stakes each of the past two years and one in 2016. Throw in some seconds and thirds and the Indiana Derby card has been very good to the Cox stable.
“Yeah, but I've never run a horse in the Indiana Derby,” Cox said with a laugh.
That will change Wednesday with Godolphin's Shared Sense the 4-1 third choice in the field of ten 3-year-olds. Cox also has the 9-5 favorite in the co-featured $200,000, Grade 3 Indiana Oaks for 3-year-old fillies. Both horses will be ridden by Florent Geroux.
Cox's deep and talented stable has its main base at Churchill Downs with satellite divisions at Indiana Grand Racing & Casino and in New York. With the operation overseen by assistant trainer Ricky Giannini, Cox has won 38 races at Indiana Grand each of the past two meets with his winning percentage generally over 30 percent. That's been on display on the track's signature day of racing.
Coincidentally, now that Cox has his first Indiana Derby starter, he does not have any horses in those undercard stakes in which he's been so successful.
Shared Sense certainly has the breeding to go the classic distances. He is a son of 2007 Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense, who is a stallion at owner-breeder Godolphin's Darley America in Lexington. Shared Sense's mom, Collective, is a daughter of 2006 Preakness winner Bernardini, another Darley stallion.
Shared Sense blitzed to a career-best 95 Bris speed figure in his last start, a Churchill Downs allowance race. The only problem was that Art Collector ran even faster, beating runner-up Shared Sense by 6 1/2 lengths. It was only a four-horse field, but Art Collector and third-place Finnick the Fierce are headed to Keeneland's Grade 2 Toyota Blue Grass Saturday, with Shared Sense and fourth-place Necker Island in the Indiana Derby.
“He got beat by a very nice horse,” Geroux said. “It was a very fast race, looked like one of the fastest 3-year-old speed figures in America so far this year. So that's exciting. But it was a long way between myself and (the winner). But the horse is doing great. It looks like a good spot for him.”
The Indiana Derby will be Shared Sense's first start in a graded stakes. He was sixth in two prior stakes, one in the mud and one grass.
“He's got to get a set up,” Cox said of the late-closer. “We need some speed in there to get his best effort. He's going to show up. He's been training well, continues to get better. And I think he'll get better with more ground. The mile and an eighth should be a positive. He's bred to run all day. I think he'll be in the mix.”
Cox said Shared Sense is reminiscent of a late-blooming 3-year-old he had last year in Owendale, who took a while to hit his best stride but then won a trio of Grade 3 stakes last year while also finishing a fast-flying third in the Preakness Stakes.
“He's got that Owendale running style and getting better with age, for sure,” he said.
Cox has rocketed to the top echelon of horse racing in recent years. Monomoy Girl, who earned her first victory at Indiana Grand, won the 2018 Kentucky Oaks and Breeders' Cup Distaff to be the trainer's first champion. He added two more Eclipse Award winners last year with Covfefe taking the 3-year-old filly and female sprint titles and British Idiom the 2-year-old filly championship after capturing their Breeders' Cup races.
He has yet to run a horse in the Kentucky Derby, however.
Cox is painfully aware of the attrition at the top end of the 3-year-old crop this year. He won the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby with Wells Bayou, now sidelined with bone bruising. He won a division of the Fair Grounds' Grade 2 Risen Star with Mr. Monomoy, out with an ankle injury.
“We've had a horse or two in the past who were in the hunt,” Cox said. “It's extremely hard just to get them qualified (for the Derby), and I'm finding out it's even harder to keep them healthy, happy and sound. Wells Bayou would have made it if it had been the first Saturday in May. It's a tough race to get to, and it's definitely a unique year. Hopefully this is the first and last of a September Derby.”
Cox has run in the Indiana Oaks before, finishing second and third in 2018 with Figarella's Queen and Kelly's Humor.
Shedaresthedevil's only finish out of the top three was fourth place in last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. She was turned over to Cox this year after being bought for $280,000 at Keeneland's November sale by Qatar Racing and Flurry Racing. Her four starts this year include a victory in Oaklawn Park's Grade 3 Honeybee, third in the Grade 3 Fantasy and then a six-length, front-running romp in a Churchill Downs allowance race.
“She ran a huge one,” Cox said. “We were looking just to get a race in her between the Fantasy and wherever we ended up, which ended up being the Indiana Oaks. She worked well all winter when we picked her up, and she's just continued to improve all winter, all spring and into the summer. If she shows up, she'll be tough.”
Shedaresthedevil should be in the Sept. 4 Kentucky Oaks “as long as she's happy and healthy and in good form,” he said.
“Shared Sense has a long way to go,” he continued. “He would need to pull it off on Wednesday and probably do a little more for the Godolphin team to want to try the Derby. That's up to them. But he's a nice horse. We've always thought he was a horse who could pick up the pieces in a big race. We're going into a big race with a live shot. He's an honest horse. He's going to need to take a step forward Wednesday, and I think he can.”
Live racing continues through Wednesday, Nov. 18. Action is held Monday through Thursday beginning at 2:20 p.m. Post times for the all-Quarter Horse programs is to be determined.
The post Trainer Brad Cox Has ‘Two Live Shots’ With Indiana Derby, Oaks Starters appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
