Rain could be the only thing stopping Ward's speedy duo in featured turf sprint
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Wesley Ward could have two horses for the featured fourth race Thursday at Churchill Downs. Or, he could have none.
Ward entered Outfielder and Schwarzenegger in a $141,000 allowance race, carded for 5 1/2 furlongs on grass and restricted to 3-year-olds who haven’t won a graded stakes race on turf.
A soggy Wednesday forced races carded for turf onto a sloppy main track. Precipitation had moved out of the area by mid-afternoon Wednesday, but turf racing Thursday is in jeopardy.
“Are they even going to run on the grass?” Ward said Wednesday afternoon from his Keeneland base. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. Not till morning. I think they’ll both go over there and we’ll make a last-minute call.”
Outfielder, an also-eligible for the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, which Ward won with the brilliant Bacio, is the 8-5 morning-line favorite among nine entered – and for good reason. Outfielder has won five of his nine starts, including two decent defeats in Europe, and in May at Churchill proved much the best in the $222,000 William Walker over 5 1/2 furlongs on grass. Outfielder finished fourth as the 3-5 favorite in the Mahoney Stakes on Aug. 16 at Saratoga, showing his customary speed but fading late.
Outfielder returned last month at Keeneland in a race like Thursday’s, favored at 17-10 and was…sixth at the first call?
Outfielder had always raced prominently, so what gave at Keeneland? Ward said he didn’t instruct jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. to change tactics and take back. And Ortiz told Ward he hadn’t planned on being so far back.
“He said it was unbelievable. The horse just broke and took himself back there. He just sat back there, had him nice and relaxed, and as soon as he topped him out, he was like a lion to antelopes,” Ward said.
Outfielder got up to win by a half-length. Ortiz is injured and Outfielder has a new jockey, Tyler Gaffalione, and with serious speed drawn outside him Thursday, a race like the one at Keeneland could do the trick.
Schwarzenegger, a pace player himself, has run the two worst races of his six-start career over the Keeneland course, and finished more than 10 lengths behind his stablemate last month. Schwarzenegger, Ward acknowledged, doesn’t love the Keeneland course, but there was more to his recent flop than that.
“He’s a really super-smart horse. He gets in the gate, ready to go, and when he’s in front he can kind of relax. When he’s not, he doesn’t, and he chokes his air down. Prior to his last win at Churchill, I took him to the swimming pool I have here at the farm, and that really helps his breathing. When you swim, they can really learn how to breathe,” Ward said.
No swimming at Saratoga prior to the Keeneland race. Swimming at Keeneland prior to this Churchill race.
“That might really help this guy,” Ward said.
Throckmorton won the heated pace battle in the Keeneland allowance and ran very well to hold second, beaten a half-length by Outfielder. The horse runs fine while pressing or stalking and might work out a more patient trip Thursday.
Rail-drawn Trouble Calling fits the spot on talent, enters fresh, and could get a favorable stalking trip at a reasonable price – provided the Thursday feature stays on turf.
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