Michelle Elliott tries to keep Indiana Oaks trophy home with Top

Trainer Michelle Elliott has been based at Horseshoe Indianapolis since she switched from the world of prepping young horses for sale to opening a racing stable in 2017. She has watched every year as others, most from out of state, compete in Indiana’s signature races, the Grade 3, $300,000 Indiana Derby and the $200,000 Indiana Oaks (G3).

But on Saturday with the 3-year-old filly Top, Elliott will saddle her first starter in the 1 1/16-mile Indiana Oaks. This is a very big deal for a stable largely populated with Indiana-bred horses and claiming horses. Elliott recalls her last time in a graded stakes, when she finished third in Churchill Downs’s 2018 Bashford Manor (G3) with 99-1 shot Overanalyzer.

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“It’s very exciting because it is my home track and I grew up in Indiana,” she said of the Indiana Oaks, for which Top is the 5-1 third choice behind 8-5 Clicquot and 9-5 Heavenly Sunset in the field of six. “It’s exciting for this track to have that caliber of race.”

The Indiana Oaks is the 11th race on Saturday’s 13-race card, which includes eight stakes. The Indiana Oaks is scheduled to go off at 5:55 p.m. EDT, with the Indiana Derby the next race with a listed post time of 6:33. Admission and parking are free.

Elliott owns the Kentucky-bred Top in partnership with Carrie and Craig Brogden’s Machmer Hall Thoroughbreds of Paris, Ky. The daughter of the Hill ’n’ Dale stallion Army Mule started out with three races at Turfway Park, her best finish a third. Top thrived once she got back to her home track and on the dirt. Top promptly won a Horseshoe Indy maiden race, was second and then captured an entry-level allowance race while sprinting.

The initial plan was to ship Top to Kentucky for a presumably easier spot.

“And then I thought, well, this is her home track, and we’re going to be running against similar company,” Elliott said, referencing the fact that five of the six Indiana Oaks horses are eligible for a second-level allowance, including Clicquot. “It will be her first time stretching out on the dirt. We did run her a mile at Turfway, but she wasn’t really a synthetic horse. She does prefer the dirt. So the stretch-out will be interesting, but she does have the breeding to go long. And who doesn’t want to take a shot at a Grade 3 with a filly?”

But first she spoke with Top’s jockey, Fernando De La Cruz, one of Horseshoe Indy’s leading riders.

“I said, ‘What do you think? We’ve got two races under our belt where we went (six furlongs) in 1:09 and change,’ ” Elliott said. “I said it really does lean toward the fact that she has speed. He said, ‘Michelle, she will do whatever I ask her to do. She runs that fast because I asked her to run that fast.’ So I think he’s going to let her break and see where we’re at. He’s going to go from there and probably wait until the three-eighths pole and send her home. And hope that we’re in the top flight.”

Should Top win, Elliott could be excused if her reaction is, well, over the top. She is Indy through and through, growing up in Brookston, between Indianapolis and Chicago. Her father, Jim Elliott, was a trainer who also bought young horses to develop and resell as 2-year-olds, working off his 43-acre farm with a five-eighths of a mile track. Michelle Elliott also was working with young horses, spending years in Lexington and Ocala before returning home to help her mother, Amy, with the farm upon Jim’s death.

“I worked for a lot of different outfits, so you learn a lot,” Michelle Elliott said. “You learn what to do, what not to do, what will work.”

One thing she learned is that Machmer Hall raises a good horse. Elliott said Top was pointed for a 2-year-olds-in-training sale, “and of course something came up and she couldn’t go in the sale.”

“Carrie usually takes them from the sale and lays them off,” she said. “Some of them I get, and we go partners with them. I’ve had Top since she came back from Ocala. I really, really liked this filly from the very beginning. She’s just been easy-peasy. Never turns a hair, does everything right. Carrie is a great partner. (After the Turfway races) I said, ‘Let’s give her a shot on the dirt. I think she’s a talented filly because she ran well at Turfway, but she didn’t particularly love the synthetic.’ Because she was right there every race except for her first time going a mile. When we brought her here for the dirt, that’s when she really excelled.

“I’ve done very well with Carrie and Machmer Farm.”

Goldeneye Magic is the winningest filly in the Indiana Oaks, with a 5-for-8 record and two thirds, all in Ohio. The daughter of Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Mucho Macho Man had only sprinted when owner-trainer Jason DaCosta put her in against older fillies and mares in Thistledown’s $250,000 Lady Jacqueline Stakes, a 1 1/8-mile race on the June 21 Ohio Derby card. Goldeneye Magic beat odds-on favorite Peignoir by a nose, paying $65 to win.

DaCosta is a champion trainer in Jamaica who began racing in the U.S. in 2009. According to Quickgallopja.com, he is the son of 18-time Jamaica champion trainer Wayne DaCosta, who died in 2021 from COVID complications, with the younger DaCosta effectively taking over his stable while also racing in the U.S.

Sturgeon Moon making her first start for trainer Will Walden in the Indiana Oaks. It is her first race since she was fourth in Churchill Downs’s Golden Rod Stakes (G2) on Nov. 30, won by Kentucky Oaks (G1) winner Good Cheer. Tampa Bay Downs allowance winner Deloraine was third in Aqueduct’s Gazelle (G3) on dirt in her last start April 30 and third in the Tampa Bay Oaks (G3) on grass. Heavenly Sunset grudgingly finished second after setting the pace in the May 31 allowance race at Churchill Downs won by Indiana Oaks favorite Clicquot.