The Great War being pointed toward Spiral

There is nothing surprising about where the top three finishers from last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile are training this winter. The victorious Texas Red is working at Santa Anita toward his 3-year-old debut, and the runner-up Carpe Diem and the third-place Upstart are gearing up in Florida, with the latter entered in Saturday’s Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream for his first start of 2015.

On the other hand, the fourth-place finisher The Great War is following an unconventional path, spending the winter in Kentucky with new trainer Wesley Ward eyeing a trio of stakes at Turfway Park, culminating in the Grade 3 Spiral on March 21.

Based at Keeneland, The Great War, a 3-year-old son of War Front, has been making weekly trips up to Turfway Park to breeze over the track surface, with Ward not wishing to breeze his horses over the tight turns of Keeneland’s Polytrack training track. The main Keeneland track, which was changed from Polytrack to dirt last summer, is closed for the winter.

Ward said he is targeting next Saturday’s 96ROCK Stakes, a 6 1/2-furlong race on the Polytrack, for The Great War, followed by the one-mile John Battaglia on Feb. 28 and finally the 1 1/8-mile Spiral.

Racing last year under the direction of trainer Aidan O’Brien, The Great War won three races on turf in Ireland before switching to dirt for the Nov. 1 Breeders’ Cup. He was beaten 8 1/4 lengths.

Thereafter, he was transferred to Ward, with the opportunity to race on Polytrack being the appeal of a Turfway winter-spring campaign.

As for wintering in Kentucky with the horse, Ward said, “I didn’t want him shipping in from Florida, coming into the frigid weather to race.”

The colt has worked three times at Turfway this winter, breezing five furlongs in a bullet 59.60 seconds last Saturday.

The Great War isn’t the only top horse Ward has in Kentucky in a small division at Keeneland. There also is Pablo Del Monte, who worked a bullet half-mile at Turfway last Sunday in 47.60. A specialist over synthetic surfaces, he was third in the Grade 1 Blue Grass last spring before finishing sixth in the Preakness at Pimlico on dirt and sixth in the Bing Crosby at Del Mar on Polytrack.

Ward said his top performers from the Breeders’ Cup are being pointed toward the Keeneland meet in April, including female sprint champion Judy the Beauty, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint. She won the Grade 1 Madison last April at Keeneland when it was run on Polytrack.

The 3-year-olds Hootenanny, Luck of the Kitten, and Sunset Glow are being pointed the grass at Keeneland, with ambitious long-term goals of racing in some of Europe’s most prestigious spring and summer turf races, perhaps at Royal Ascot, Ward said.

Hootenanny and Luck of the Kitten ran one-two in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, and Sunset Glow won the Juvenile Fillies Turf.

Hootenanny and Sunset Glow ran well overseas last year at 2, with Hootenanny winning a stakes at Royal Ascot and later running second in a Group 1 in France, and Sunset Glow finishing second in a Group 3 at Royal Ascot.

“Hopefully they’ll run as well as 3-year-olds there as they did at 2,” Ward said.

Falutin adds blinkers in feature

Typical of most cards at Turfway in the winter, Sunday’s program is made up mostly of low-end claiming races, with the eighth race,a $24,000 non-winners-of-two allowance at a mile for fillies and mares.

Half of the eight entrants exit a similar Dec. 26 allowance, including the race’s second-, third-, and fourth-place finishers. It was a roughly contested affair, with Soul Title being disqualified from third and placed fourth for drifting in and impeding Ketel Twist, whom the stewards ultimately elevated to the third position.

Adding blinkers in the race is the 2-1 morning-line favorite Falutin, who weakened to eighth in that Dec. 26 allowance but who had finished second Dec. 11 in a first-level allowance.

Rodney Prescott rides Falutin for trainer Tommy Drury and owner Claiborne Farm.