Judy the Beauty faces crunch time in Thoroughbred Club of America
LEXINGTON, Ky. – As far as Wesley Ward is concerned, the preceding 11 months don’t much matter. This is crunch time. This is when it starts to count.
Judy the Beauty, Ward’s pride and joy, begins her march toward a championship defense Saturday as a solid favorite in the Grade 2, $250,000 Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes at Keeneland. Now 6, Judy the Beauty won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint and a divisional Eclipse Award last year, and “everything we’ve done since then has been about repeating,” said Ward.
Ward typically trains for outside clients, but Judy the Beauty is his and his alone. She was his first Grade 1 winner and his first champion. If Ward has his way, she will win Saturday, then win again four weeks later in the Filly and Mare Sprint.
“She owes me nothing, but she trains like she wants more,” he said.
Judy the Beauty, with Mike Smith to ride, will break from post 3 when facing seven other fillies and mares in the six-furlong TCA Stakes, the sixth of 10 Saturday races.
Just to the outside of Judy the Beauty are her top threats, Sweet Whiskey (post 4, Florent Geroux) and Leigh Court (post 5, Victor Espinoza). As for longer-priced fillies, Spelling Again (post 6, Shaun Bridgmohan) and Heykittykittykitty (post 1, Ricardo Santana Jr.) were the respective one-two finishers in the Open Mind Stakes three weeks ago at Churchill Downs.
This will be the 35th running of the TCA, one of eight Win and You’re In races being run early this meet toward the Oct. 30-31 Breeders’ Cup.
KEY CONTENDERS
Judy the Beauty (Last 3 Beyers: 90-92-95)
◗ Her two appearances since the 2014 Breeders’ Cup have been well spaced – a second at Churchill in early May and a third at Saratoga in late July – and that’s by design. Over the last seven weeks, Ward has sent this Ontario-bred daughter of Ghostzapper through six works at Keeneland, all but one of them bullets.
Sweet Whiskey (Last 3 Beyers: 88-90-69)
◗ The combination of less distance and easier company have allowed her to get back into form, and now comes a more legitimate test; her trainer, Todd Pletcher, is no stranger to stakes wins at Keeneland, having ascended to second in track history with 44.
Leigh Court (Last 3 Beyers: 91-92-83)
◗ A three-length winner of the 2014 TCA for her former connections, this 5-year-old mare enters off back-to-back runner-up finishes over turf and synthetic as trainer Mike Stidham takes aim at the Breeders’ Cup. This classy sort has some versatility and figures to make a fight of it.