Following Indiana Derby Day, which was July 8 this year, the stakes portion of the marathon race meeting at Horseshoe Indianapolis turns inward. The last 18 races on the 2023 stakes schedule after the Indiana Derby are restricted to Indiana-bred or Indiana-sired horses. Only two of them at $75,000 don’t have six figure purses, four boast purses of $200,000 or greater, and the total prize money available in those 18 races is about $2.5 million. No wonder there are so many Indiana-breds running around these days, and four stakes on the Wednesday program at Horseshoe Indianapolis drew 47 of them. The stakes quartet, two for juveniles and two for older horses, are restricted to Indiana-breds and carded for two turns on dirt. The older-horse races are worth $150,000, the 2-year-old contests $100,000, and all are run as handicaps so that their participants can race on Lasix, which is not permitted in races designated as stakes. The weights, as often has been the case in these Indiana handicaps, are out of whack. Three-year-olds this time of year should be getting weight from older horses, but that’s not the case in either the To Much Coffee or the Cardinal, the latter race restricted to fillies and mares. :: Bet with the Best! Get Free DRF PPs and Cashback when you wager. Join DRF Bets. Three-year-old King Ice carries 124 pounds in the 1 1/16-mile To Much Coffee, giving weight to all his older rivals except Mr Chaos, but even with the unfair impost, King Ice stands a good chance of winning. Trained by George Leonard and with Joe Talamo set for a return call, King Ice can easily be forgiven his sixth-place finish Aug. 23 in the Bucchero Stakes; that race was contested on turf, and King Ice is a dirt horse. By Keen Ice, King Ice is a true route runner, debuting in a two-turn race as a 2-year-old and never sprinting. He won the Indiana Futurity over one mile on dirt a year ago and after a narrow loss in the Hoosier Breeders’ Sophomore on June 21, King Ice won the Snack, rained off turf and onto dirt, and the $250,000 Governors, another age-restricted stakes. The Governors marked a high-water mark for King Ice, who won going away despite having to rally into a slow pace. There’s plenty of speed signed on in the To Much Coffee, and late-running King Ice, back to his preferred surface, should be rolling through the short Horseshoe Indianapolis homestretch. Four-year-old Mr Chaos won the $100,000 Empire Stakes over a mile on dirt last month after leading on a very slow pace. He’s best at one mile and shorter and faces a more challenging pace scenario Wednesday, when he’ll go postward higher than his 5-2 morning-line odds. Cash Logistics looked like the horse to beat in the Empire but was an early scratch from the race. He’s entered here with no recent posted workouts and is hard to support given the circumstances. Bluelightspecial is the morning-line favorite in the Cardinal, but Louder Than Words is the pick to beat her. Bluelightspecial, another 3-year-old assigned 124 pounds, had been racing since July 2022 without a break and her strong win June 21 in the Hoosier Breeders’ Sophomore apparently put her over the top. She ran flat Aug. 2 in the First Lady Stakes and subsequently was given a well-earned freshening. Bluelightspecial figures to come back to form Wednesday for trainer Cipriano Contreras and his nephew, jockey Manny Esquivel, but that might not be enough to handle Louder Than Words. Louder Than Words won the Peony Stakes on turf Aug. 23 but is as good on dirt as grass and brings a four-race winning streak into the Cardinal. Ice Cold tries statebreds If something about Ice Cold strikes a familiar chord in the $100,000 Miss Indiana Stakes, it should. A third-time starter trained by Kenny McPeek, Ice Cold comes to the Miss Indiana after a decent sixth-place finish facing open turf-route maidens at Saratoga. So had Corningstone when she romped in the 2022 Miss Indiana for McPeek and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. Ice Cold has worked three times since her Sept. 4 start and would be playable Wednesday at something like her 4-1 morning-line odds. She faces Charged Legacy and Noneofyourbusiness, one-two in the Back Home Again Stakes last month. Both horses try two turns for the first time, and neither is a sure thing to like it. Molly’s Town has started his career with three dominant wins, including a three-length victory making his stakes debut last month in the Circle City, but he’ll be an odds-on favorite tying two turns for the first time in the Indiana Futurity, and Kingsbury Road could be his equal at this longer distance. Kingsbury Road showed little debuting in an Aug. 8 sprint race before clearing the maiden ranks by more than nine lengths in a two-turn mile on Aug. 31. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.