Trainer Tom Amoss has never been shy about sharing his feelings about his filly Hoosier Philly (Into Mischief), saying she's the best horse he has ever trained. With Hoosier Philly ready to make her 3-year-old debut in Saturday's GII Rachel Alexandra S. at the Fair Grounds, the TDN team called upon Amoss to join them for this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland to get his latest thoughts on a filly who could be a superstar. Amoss was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.
It didn't take him long to figure out that Hoosier Philly was going places.
“When she was getting ready to run at the beginning of September, we worked her quite a bit with other horses,” he said. “What she was doing in the mornings in her workouts and her strong moves against competition was unlike anything that we had seen in our barn. I'm not going to tell that I've had all these champions, but we've had a lot of good horses. We've had enough of them through the years since 1987 when I started that I knew this one was just different. Hoosier Philly was different than anything I've had before.”
When last seen, Hoosier Philly was romping to a five-length win in the GII Golden Rod S. at Churchill Downs on Nov. 26. She returned to the worktab on Jan. 28 at the Fair Grounds, posting the first of three straight bullet works. Amoss knows the expectations will be huge come Saturday, but he feels that Hoosier Philly will be ready.
“The expectations have now become so high with her,” he said. “It's almost as if anything less than a win is going to be a huge disappointment, not only to the barn and the ownership but to the general racing public. Hoosier Philly has gone through her preps just as she should. If there's any hesitancy in my voice at all, it's only because she hasn't run since the end of November and this is her first start off the bench. I just want her to show me that she's the same horse she was at two, if not a more mature, better version of that. In the mornings, that's what she's telling us. So, hopefully, we'll see that on Saturday.”
Hoosier Philly has been nominated to the Triple Crown and Amoss has said he will consider a start in the GI Kentucky Derby. (Hoosier Philly closed at 11-1 in the latest round of Derby Future Wager betting). For now, though, Amoss said he's not looking past the Rachel Alexandra.
“She's going to run in this race on Saturday, the Rachel Alexandra,” Amoss said. “What she does after that race is so dependent on how she performs and how she comes out of the race. We'll have a long discussion with the owners so far as what we're going to point to next. But that would be the case with any horse. Getting ahead of yourself and beginning to do this or that is silly. When you think about those odds, the 11-1 in the Future Wager, if we were to go to the Derby I think she might be 11-1 at post time. So why would you want to bet on something like that now? All the talk about the Derby is just a lot of noise. I'm looking forward to Saturday and in her coming back as a healthy horse after the race and, hopefully, a successful one.”
Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, Lane's End, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, XBTV and West Point Thoroughbreds, Randy Moss, Zoe Cadman and Bill Finley took a look back at the stunning upset by Dreaming of Snow (Jess's Dream) in the Suncoast S. at Tampa Bay Downs and the wins by Litigate (Blame) and Hit Show (Candy Ride {Arg}) in their Derby preps. Looking ahead, the team previewed the Rachel Alexandra S. and the GII Risen Star S. Moss, Cadman and Finley also shared their memories of three notable figures who passed away during the week, Burt Bacharach, Diana Firestone and John Veitch.
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