Leader of the Band at top of her game for Serena's Song Stakes

Leader of the Band, winner of last summer’s Grade 3 Monmouth Oaks, returns to the Jersey Shore for Sunday’s $100,000 Serena’s Song Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile and 70 yards.

A homebred daughter of Bandbox trained by John Servis for SMD Limited, Leader of the Band earned an 86 Beyer Speed Figure when capturing the Monmouth Oaks on July 31 by two lengths. She finished second as the favorite in the Cathryn Sophia Stakes on Aug. 24 at Parx Racing, then concluded her 2021 campaign with a sixth-place effort against top fillies Clairiere and Obligatory in the Grade 1 Cotillion on Sept. 25.

“We were talking about giving her a break after the Cathryn Sophia,” Servis said Friday morning. “but we thought that her effort in that race deserved a shot at the Cotillion.”

Leader of the Band finished third at odds of 1-10 in her seasonal debut, a statebred allowance Feb. 23 at Parx Racing.

“She hadn’t run in a while and this track [Parx] is really deep, and we had been training her in Florida,” Servis said. “She probably just needed the race.”

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Leader of the Band bounced out of that race to dominate a similar group by 10 1/4 lengths on March 29 at Parx.

“The filly is hitting on all cylinders,” Servis added.”

Wholebodemeister upset Gulfstream Park’s Grade 2 Davona Dale at 52-1 odds in 2021 before being purchased privately by bloodstock agent Nick Sallusto on behalf of Holly Hill Stables.

“The thought process was that she was [Kentucky] Oaks-bound,” Sallusto said. “Between the time the purchase was made and the time she was in Todd Pletcher’s barn, she had some sort of blunt-force trauma and injured one of her tendons.”

Wholebodemeister never started for Pletcher and eventually commenced training at Sallusto’s facility in Ocala, Fla., and was transferred to trainer Michelle Hemingway.

The filly returned from a 378-day layoff to finish third in a seven-furlong handicap on March 12 at Tampa Bay Downs.

“We were incredibly happy,” Hemingway said. “We knew that seven furlongs was possibly a little bit short for her.”

Wholebodemeister breezed a bullet on May 1 at Monmouth, and Hemingway believes she “really likes the surface.”

Moraz placed in three graded stakes races on dirt in Southern California in 2021 and will now make her first start for Jerry Hollendorfer after running on turf in five of her last six races.

“That’s a horse that was transferred to us in the last few weeks and we’ve breezed her a few times,” Hollendorfer said. “She seems to be doing very well. The owners, Don Alberto Corporation, wanted to try a dirt campaign with her.”

Cafe Society, third in the 2020 Tempted at Aqueduct, looks like a solid contender for trainer Shug McGaughey after earning competitive Beyers in her three starts over a one-turn mile this year.

Stand for the Flag makes her first start for new connections after being purchased for $90,000 at the Keeneland January auction.

Multiple stakes winners Oliviaofthedesert and Miss Leslie, stakes-placed Moma Tiger, Flight to Shanghai, and Misty Taste complete the field.