Lady Fog Horn clear standout in Hoosier Breeders’ Sophomore

The Wednesday program at Indiana Grand features four $85,000, two-turn dirt stakes for Indiana-breds. The 3-year-old filly Lady Fog Horn has gotten so good that she might well be favored in any of them, age- and sex-restricted or otherwise.

As it happens, Lady Fog Horn was cross-entered in two of the four stakes, the fillies’ division of the Hoosier Breeders’ Sophomore and the Richmond Stakes for older females. Trainer Tony Granitz said Lady Fog Horn will go in the Hoosier. She fits just as well with the older females, but her connections see no reason not to keep her with her own age group Wednesday.

“I wish the races were a couple weeks apart so we could run in both of them,” said Granitz, who trains Lady Fog Horn for Stuart Grant’s The Elkstone Group.

Lady Fog Horn already has an $89,000 stakes win and a $171,000 stakes win to her credit at this meet, and that doesn’t count Grant’s breeder and Indiana-sire awards, since Lady Fog Horn is by the Indiana stallion Zavata. There also is another $150,000 stakes in her division on closing day of his long meet.

On Wednesday, Lady Fog Horn will be an odds-on favorite to win her third straight, and unless she regresses substantially, they won’t beat her. Granitz, who long has been based in Chicago but expanded to the East in recent seasons, wintered Lady Fog Horn at Tampa Bay Downs and figured he’d come back to the Midwest with a live horse.

“I took her to Tampa, and she really developed,” he said. “I really liked her as a 2-year-old and thought she wanted to run on grass and long, and I thought when she came back to Indiana, she’d really go forward, and she has.”

Lady Fog Horn won a race similar to Wednesday’s – 3-year-old fillies on dirt – two starts back and hit a career peak in beating older mares in a turf-route stakes last out. She has post 1 and regular rider Albin Jimenez in the irons, and perhaps the only thing that might get in her way is one of the periodic Indiana Grand dead-rail days.

There’s no such standout in the males’ division of the Hoosier Breeders’ Sophomore. Horses like Daddy Justice, Memphisinmay, and Devil’s Due West have taken turns beating each other this season. East Coast shipper Bucchero, the 5-2 morning-line favorite, will at least be a major pace factor while stretching out from sprints to his first route, but he is far from assured of seeing out the two-turn trip and was defeated by Daddy Justice when he raced at Indiana Grand last season.

Without Lady Fog Horn, the Richmond for older fillies could fall in any number of directions. Lena Love flopped on turf two starts ago at Indiana Grand but can win if she runs right back to a last-start Churchill Downs starter-allowance showing.

Clyde Park is the defending champion in the Gus Grissom Stakes for older males, but he won last year by a mere nose and since then has lost all six of his starts. Needmore Cash is the tepid selection to win. If he transfers his last-start turf-route stakes win to dirt – coupled with a favorable setup rallying into what looks like a strong pace – Needmore Cash could be the one. Alas, he has produced a top-shelf showing only once before in a dirt route and doesn’t seem to stay two turns on dirt.