Moonlit Garden dons new shoes, seeks lost form in Tiffany Lass Stakes

Moonlit Garden carried bright, glowing form into the Grade 3 Turnback the Alarm Stakes on Nov. 3 at Aqueduct. She came out of that race a waning crescent.

After winning two dirt starts, finishing second to the good filly Divine Miss Grey in another such race, and then winning the Summer Colony at Saratoga on Aug. 19, Moonlit Garden sank quickly below the horizon at Aqueduct in November, finishing sixth by more than 37 lengths under Dylan Davis.

But trainer Chris Davis thinks touchy feet and special horse shoes might have caused the poor performance, and if Moonlit Garden shines again Wednesday she can win the $75,000 Tiffany Lass Stakes at Fair Grounds.

“She had a little foot problem and I ran her in New York with bar shoes,” said Davis, who got his first win of the Fair Grounds meet Friday. “I didn’t take them off and I probably should’ve. Dylan said when he asked her to run she just spun her wheels.”

Moonlit Garden went to a Kentucky farm, got a visit from a podiatrist, and rejoined Davis’s string at Fair Grounds in mid-November. She’s now regular-shod and is working like the horse with ascendant form of earlier this year.

“She’s been training lights out,” Davis said.

There are six other fillies and mares in the Tiffany Lass, a one-mile and 70-yard dirt race that could have Shenandoah Queen as the favorite. Shenandoah Queen makes her first start for trainer Brad Cox after campaigning in California the last two seasons. Her form peaks came with a second-place finish behind Fault last winter in the Grade 3 Adoration and a third behind Vale Dori and La Force in the Grade 1 Zenyatta this past summer. She’s capable, but will likely be overbet Wednesday.

America’s Tale, winner of the $100,000 Safely Kept over seven furlongs on Nov. 10 at Laurel, is a front-end threat if she can shake loose on the lead from an outside draw. Improving Auspicious Babe would benefit from a strong pace and can boost vertical exotic payoffs.

Walsh has Lecomte probable

Trainer Brendan Walsh won a Friday afternoon allowance race with a filly likely bound for the Silverbulletday Stakes on Jan. 19, and on Saturday morning worked a colt who is probable for the Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes the same day.

Grandaria, by Curlin, won a first-level Friday allowance for 2-year-old fillies with a long, sustained rally, galloping out like a filly who will comfortably stay 1 1/8 miles. She got only a 67 Beyer winning her second straight race, but closed into a slow pace on a dead track and has more talent than her speed figure suggests.

“She hasn’t done a whole lot wrong so far,” Walsh said.

Plus Que Parfait, second by a neck last out in the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes, worked an easy half-mile Saturday, his first breeze since that Nov. 24 start.

“He looks great, seems to like this track,” Walsh said. “We’ll put him in the Lecomte and have a look at that.”