Many of Ward's 2-year-olds in ‘holding pattern' with no Keeneland meet

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Wesley Ward has had one day circled on his calendar for nearly the last six months, since the first morning he began the arduous ordeal of preparing the 50 or so yearlings in his care last fall for their 2-year-old campaigns. That day was Thursday, April 2, opening day of the Keeneland spring meet.

But instead of being at Keeneland on Thursday with the likely favorite in the season’s first 2-year-old race, Ward spent the day like most of his others this winter, putting his young horses through another day of training while he waits and waits for somewhere to run.

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“Today is my day, opening day at Keeneland,” Ward said. “I still can’t believe we’re not there. It’s the first time since I started going there in 2007 I haven’t been in Lexington for opening day at Keeneland. I had them lined up, ready to go, too, from my 2-year-olds all the way to older horses like Four Wheel Drive, who I had also planned on running at Keeneland today.”

Four Wheel Drive, undefeated in three starts last year at 2, has not started since winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint on Nov. 1 at Santa Anita.

Ward, who has been training horses for more than three decades, explained the tried-and-true method he uses to prepare his babies for the races.

“We start breaking them in October and putting the miles into them on the Circle S Farm in Davie,” Ward said. “We can both gallop and swim them out there, with most of the galloping done on the grass. After a while, I have a pretty good feel which ones are going to be fast early, just from their physical components, even before I start breezing them, and those are the ones I begin to work first. The four or five of the 50 or so we start with are the ones I center in on for Keeneland. The rest kind of fall into place after the first wave, around the end of March.”

Ward says he has about 10 2-year-olds ready to run, with the best of that group already up in Kentucky and likely to stay there for the time being. The others, he said, are in a “holding pattern” here in South Florida, spread out among the farm, his primary barn at Palm Meadows, and with a half-dozen or so stabled at Gulfstream Park West.

“Right now, it looks like our only outlet is Gulfstream Park where the first 2-year-old races are scheduled for the 16th and 17th,” Ward said. “And fortunately I doubt they’ll have trouble filling them, since I’m hearing a lot of the pinhookers in Ocala with horses slated to go to sales that have been canceled are ready to head for the races now instead.”