Outfielder can touch 'em all in William Walker
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As a May 2-year-old in 2025, Outfielder aced his career debut, winning a Churchill Downs turf-sprint maiden by 6 1/4 lengths. Three months later in France, the colt, despite a poor break, finished a close fourth in a strong renewal of the Group 1 Prix Morny over a straight six furlongs. Back home, two more sprint wins, one dirt, the most recent on Tapeta. All that, and the horse comes to the $225,000 William Walker Stakes on Saturday at Churchill still more prospect than star. Does Outfielder just have warning-track power, or is he truly a home run threat?
“This race is really going to tell his tale,” Wesley Ward said.
Ward trains Outfielder and owns 20 percent of him, as does Jayson Werth, who began his baseball career as a catcher and wound up an outfielder, with 229 career home runs in the major leagues. Kia Joorabchian’s Amo Racing is Outfielder’s majority owner, and Joorabchian desired to run Outfielder in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, a two-turn mile that produced the colt’s lone poor performance. Maybe Outfielder could get a mile under ideal circumstances, but he absolutely did not last fall at Del Mar.
Ward brought Outfielder back for his 3-year-old debut in the $248,000 Animal Kingdom, a six-furlong Tapeta contest March 21 at Turfway Park. Outfielder set a strong pace – the race’s first three fractions coded red, for hot, by TimeformUS – yet widened his lead from 1 1/2 lengths at the stretch call to 4 1/2 lengths at the finish. The horse closest to his pace, second-choice Hometown Bound, lost by more than 20 lengths.
“He should have stopped, and he didn’t,” Ward said.
And yet, Outfielder beat only five foes. His Beyer Speed Figure, 76, came back nowhere near top class, and Outfielder’s peak figure was a 79, earned last fall on dirt. Saturday, he’s well drawn on the outside of an eight-horse field racing 5 1/2 furlongs on turf, which is supposed to be his preferred surface. Outfielder, 8-5 on the line, is supposed to go deep.
Fast as he is, Outfielder might face pace pressure. Four of his rivals exit the $287,000 Palisades on April 19 at Keeneland, a turf sprint that unfolded at a breakneck pace. Throckmorton and Walter the Mason raced, respectively, third and fourth through the early stages, and their early pace figures came back even higher than Outfielder’s. Walter the Mason played no final part, but Throckmorton held second by a neck, a gallant effort that leaves him vulnerable to regression returning on just three weeks’ rest.
Reb Five upset the Palisades at 16-1, aided by the sweetest of trips. Not only did Reb Five lay back in ninth while the overheated pace percolated, he got a beautiful run up the fence, only coming out at the sixteenth pole to tag the tiring speed. Sandal’s Song, also coming from the field’s tail while making his 3-year-old bow, could only manage sixth, a far cry from his strong 2-year-old form.
The new players here: Twilight Delight, Ketchum, and Rebel With a Cause. Ketchum last saw action Feb. 1 at Fair Grounds, finishing fourth in a first-level allowance race, his trouble line from that race functionally meaningless since Ketchum already had gone flat. Twilight Delight won his debut last summer at Ellis Park and failed to land a serious blow in two subsequent turf-sprint stakes.
Rebel With a Cause holds interest at a price. His two straight wins have come in restricted maiden and Florida-bred allowance competition, but Rebel With a Cause caught the eye both times.
“I don’t know who he beat last time, but he did everything right there and did it the right way,” said Lauren Robson, who trains Rebel With a Cause for Glenn Lostritto’s Tristar Farm and rides the gelding in morning training.
Rebel With a Cause has turned in some solid-looking work at Keeneland after shipping from Florida.
“Being on him myself,” said Robson, “he’s not the same horse on dirt. He feels serious on Tapeta.”
Robson has trained on her own for about four years. She rode for a bunch of serious trainers – Todd Pletcher, Richard Mandella, and others – and once served as an assistant to one Wesley Ward. Saturday at Churchill, we may see if Ward, in Outfielder, has a truly serious horse.
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