Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem July 13, 2026

Jason discusses a state-bred star in Indiana from Horseshoe Indianapolis' big Indiana Derby Day. 

A good Monday morning to you all! Hope everyone had a good weekend and got to watch some good racing. Not the biggest weekend in terms of the top end races, but to me I kind of prefer when we have interesting racing going on at various tracks around the country. The 5 p.m. Eastern time bouncing around from track to track on my Twinspires App brings me a weird, frenetic joy. 

I was very happy for Indiana racing fans that things got drying out as the card went along at Horseshoe Indianapolis for their Indiana Derby (G3) card. I don’t know what it is, but it feels like that track gets hit by more rain than any place in the country. I tell people I’m from Seattle and their first comment is usually, “doesn’t it rain a lot there?” My reply in recent years is “have you never been to Shelbyville, Indiana?!” 

The Indiana Derby itself wasn’t the most exciting race, as it scratched down to six horses and was won by a Brad Cox horse who only had a debut maiden victory on his resume. That being said, if the horse turns out to be a special late-season three-year old, that will go a long way for the reputation of the race, at least in this year’s edition. 

One of the stars of the day was an Indiana-bred named Jr Shadow Boy, who took home the win in the Hoosier Breeders Sophomore H. and bumped his record to a perfect 5-for-5. 

The connections bought this horse at a sale for just $3,500 back in 2024. When he debuted as a two-year-old last fall, there clearly weren’t many expectations by the bettors as he was sent off at odds of 31-1. He won that day by seven lengths with complete ease. Since then he’s now racked up four more wins, all against his fellow Indiana-breds, and he’s turned a $3,500 sale price into about $190,000 in earnings. We talk so much about the big stakes winners in our game who rack up millions in earnings, but there are so many cool stories like Jr Shadow Boy in most state-bred programs, and the state-breds are such fun. 

I was glad to see Prairie Meadows had a good Festival of Racing over their big weekend. They had a solid increase in handle from the previous year’s Iowa Derby card, and that’s great because it’s a fun little track. In the summertime, it’s so tough to really get a lot of attention for many smaller tracks. With Saratoga and Del Mar going and lots of other great spots, Prairie Meadows and tracks like that are often going to drift into the background of bettors’ minds. So I always like to see them get more attention than normal. 

This week it’s Del Mar opening up and Haskell Day at Monmouth Park. We’ll be talking about both on the podcast this week, and we hope you’ll tune in.