Piedi Bianchi a standout in rescheduled First Lady

The Governor’s Stakes and the First Lady Stakes, $150,000 Indiana-bred races for 3-year-olds and 3-year-old fillies, respectively, were lost to weather when the Aug. 8 card at Indiana Grand was canceled. The races have been rescheduled for Wednesday’s card and the presence of Piedi Bianchi might have scared a couple out of the First Lady.

There were 11 entrants when the First Lady, a one mile and 70-yard dirt race, was drawn, but now the field numbers just nine, including apparent standout Piedi Bianchi.

Piedi Bianchi raced in four Grade 1’s as a 2-year-old but this, her eighth start, marks her first in a race restricted to Indiana-breds. She should like that. Piedi Bianchi, who campaigned last year in California with trainer Doug O’Neill, scored her only win in a five-furlong race, and in her first start at age 3 – and first for trainer Todd Pletcher – she finished a tepid third in a first-level Belmont allowance race. It’s not a bad guess her connections were prepping for this $150,000 race in that $77,000 comeback, and Piedi Bianchi, who has Tyler Gaffalione named to ride, will be tough to handle at a very short price.

As for the Governor’s, three months ago The Money Dance would have spun circles around the 10 horses entered against him. That was then, this is now, and the current iteration of The Money Dance holds no obvious edge in the Governor’s.

The Money Dance came rapidly to hand early this year at Oaklawn Park for trainer Mike Lauer, winning a two-turn maiden race there on April 14 and going on to capture a first-level allowance at Belmont Park on May 3. He hasn’t been the same horse since.

A distant seventh-place finish in the Arlington Classic can be put down to a failed turf experiment, but The Money Dance floundered as the 3-5 favorite in the Hoosier Breeders’ Sophomore Stakes and was beaten 16 lengths July 14 in the Indiana Derby. Wednesday’s race obviously represents a class drop, but maybe it is too late for that.

Lauer has two other chances, Redyornothereicome and In A Fog, but the pick for an upset is Bandido de Amores, who races in blinkers for the first time and has proven adequately effective in dirt routes.

Also carded is the $50,000 Preston Madden, a turf mile restricted to horses that haven’t won a stakes race. The Madden lured Dazzling Gem, who is set to make his turf debut for trainer Brad Cox and could well be favored, but while Dazzling Gem should win if the rain forces a move to dirt, the pick for turf is Derby Champagne.