Longshot of the Day: Race 5 at Horseshoe Indianapolis

Track: Horseshoe Indianapolis

Race 5: $20K claimer going 1 1/16 miles on the turf for 3+ fillies and mares

Post Time: 4:14 PM ET

Horse: #9 Noshugforpop (20/1 morning line). Use as a win bet at 10/1 or higher.

Yesterday we had a winner on the turf at Horseshoe Indy, but we didn’t get anywhere near the morning line price of 8/1. Let’s try to solve that problem today with a big price that is likely to retain her value as Noshugforpop goes out for trainer Ben Colebrook. The daughter of Hard Spun is a classic example of muddied running lines. Just draw a line through all her dirt efforts as that is not the surface for her. Her full sister, Apple Shake Shake, was purely a turf and synthetic runner and that appears to carry over to her as well. If you isolate the three non-dirt efforts you will see she broke her maiden the first time on synthetic, admittedly against much easier company, in a maiden claiming $7,500 race at Turfway Park. However, she immediately backed that up my nearly winning a $50,000 starter allowance next time out over the all-weather when she finished third by a neck. Then she came back to run third again by two lengths in a $30,000 claimer at Horseshoe Indy back in June. So, her three non-dirt efforts have yielded her lone victory, and two close third-place finishes against tougher company. In fact, the $30,000 claiming race from June has already yielded two next out winners including Literary who stepped up to beat allowance company in her next start. The horse has not run since July 4 and only has one official work logged leading up to this race, which was on August 31 at Keeneland where she went four furlongs in 47.4 seconds. Colebrook has brought her back off the bench before with minimal work and she’s run well, so I trust that he knows how to get her ready for this spot. Will we get 20/1? Maybe not, but I’m hoping we can keep double-digit odds.