Lady Aurelia plans return trip to Europe

Lady Aurelia, a two-time overseas stakes winner and a finalist for champion 2-year-old filly of 2016, is being aimed for another European summer campaign after kicking off her 2017 season this spring at Keeneland, trainer Wesley Ward said Thursday.

Ward, speaking by phone from his primary winter base in Florida, where he is already gearing up his 2-year-olds with swimming and long gallops, said Lady Aurelia will get her early preparation this year at Barbara Banke’s Stonestreet Training Center just outside of Ocala, Fla., and join his stable later.

Last year as a juvenile, Lady Aurelia utilized similar preparation with success, winning first out at Keeneland in April for Ward and owners Stonestreet Farm, George Bolton, and Peter Leidel and then taking the Group 2 Queen Mary at Ascot in England and the Group 1 Darley Prix Morny at Deauville in France. She finished her year in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes on Sept. 24 at Newmarket in England, fading to third as the favorite.

Discovered to have bled, she was given time off to recuperate and prepare for this year.

A turf sprinter by Scat Daddy and out of the Forest Wildcat mare D’Wildcat Speed, Lady Aurelia won’t be seen in traditional spring stakes for 3-year-old fillies in the U.S., though her campaign still promises to be ambitious. Ward plans to run her against older horses in a 5 1/2-furlong turf stakes at Keeneland as a prep for the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes at Ascot. The latter race is for 3-year-olds and up and is open to both males and females.

Keeneland has a pair of 5 1/2-furlong grass stakes during its spring meet: the Grade 2, $200,000 Shakertown on April 8, which would mean a start against males, and the $100,000 Giant’s Causeway, an April 15 race restricted to fillies and mares.

Ward won the Giant’s Causeway in 2011 with the less-accomplished Holiday for Kitten, who then traveled to Ascot and finished 13th in the King’s Stand.

Beyond his excitement for her return in the spring, Ward is encouraged by what he has seen from his new group of youngsters, although none has yet breezed. With New York having upped its purses for 2-year-old maidens in the spring, he plans to split his top juveniles between Kentucky and New York, with the hope that some can prove worthy of a trip to Ascot.

“I have half as many but twice the quality,” he said of his 2-year-olds.