Gulfstream Park: Judy the Beauty targets Madison Stakes

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Owner Wesley Ward couldn’t be in attendance at Santa Anita on Sunday to watch Judy the Beauty open her 2014 campaign with an impressive victory in the Grade 3, $100,000 Las Flores Stakes. That’s because trainer Wesley Ward was too busy overseeing his latest crop of 2-year-olds as well as the rest of his large south Florida-based stable to travel across the country for the race.

“I have a lot going on down here right now, but I have the utmost confidence in my longtime assistant, Blake Heap, and no qualms about sending a horse like Judy the Beauty out there to him for an important race without being there myself,” Ward said Monday. “Besides, there are only a couple of horses I train that I really get nervous when watching them run in person, and Judy is one of those. So, it was probably just as well I stayed back here and watched the race on television.”

With the retirement of two-time defending female sprint champion Groupie Doll, Judy the Beauty has emerged as the leader of the division and the current favorite to win the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at the end of the season. Judy the Beauty finished second, beaten a half-length by Groupie Doll, in the 2013 BC Filly and Mare Sprint.

“I guess there’s some pressure to that,” Ward said. “But it’s certainly a lot less pressure than when I started my training career 20 years ago with one $4,000 claimer at Yakima Meadows who I needed to run well just so I could afford to eat. Now that was pressure.”

Ward said his first major goal of the season for Judy the Beauty is the Grade 1 Madison at Keeneland. He had originally thought about training Judy the Beauty up to the race before she worked five furlongs in 57 seconds and change at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 23.

“You saw her work that morning, it was great,” Ward said. “The way she was reaching, I knew she was ready to fire big, so I decided to send her out to Santa Anita for this race. That gives her five weeks until the Madison. The spacing is ideal, and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the way she performed yesterday, coming off the layoff.”

[Clocker Reports: Get Mike Welsch’s clocker reports from Gulfstream Park and Palm Meadows]

Ward said Judy the Beauty will ship directly from Santa Anita to Keeneland to prepare for the Madison. After that, he’ll likely give her a break before pointing to the Grade 1 Ballerina this summer at Saratoga, a race he had her ready to win last season.

“I never had her so right coming into the Ballerina last year,” Ward said. “I was totally confident she would have won that day, and then she flipped in the gate and had to be scratched.”

Ward worked a couple of sets of 2-year-olds at Gulfstream on Monday before jumping in the car and heading up to Palm Meadows, where he has a second contingent of babies in training.

“I’ve got a lot of the babies ready to run,” Ward said. “Finding races will be the problem. The Keeneland-type horses, I’ll probably try to double up on those in case something goes wrong, at least I’ll have one horse for each of their 2-year-old races this spring. The others, I’ll back off on them a little bit until there are more races available.”

◗ Thank You Marylou, idle since finishing third before being placed second in the Adirondack Stakes last summer, rallied off a spirited pace under jockey Julien Leparoux to upset Sunday’s $75,000 Any Limit Stakes for owners Ken and Sarah Ramsey and trainer Mike Maker. Thank You Marylou drew away to a 2 1/2-length victory over recent maiden winner Whomping Willow, with the odds-on graded stakes winner Sweet Whiskey a tiring third.

◗ A carryover of almost $2.8 million will be up for grabs in the Rainbow 6 when racing resumes Wednesday. The jackpot continues to approach the record Rainbow 6 payoff of $3,591,245 paid out to one lucky ticketholder from New Jersey last Feb. 22, 2013.