Ward brings Musical Design back in Tapeta sprint

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Horsemen from around the country heading to Gulfstream Park for the winter are eagerly looking forward to the opening of the newly installed turf course that is scheduled to coincide with the beginning of the Championship meet on Dec. 1. None more so, perhaps, than Wesley Ward, who is not only coming to South Florida per usual this season but taking stalls at Gulfstream for the first time in many years.

One filly Ward is likely to put back on the turf here at some point this winter is Musical Design, although for starters she will return from a near four-month layoff on the Tapeta as the likely favorite in Friday’s $51,000 main event carded at five furlongs under allowance and optional-claiming conditions. The headliner lured a field of nine fillies and mares, three of whom come from the barn of trainer Amador Sanchez.

Musical Design has made six of her eight career starts on turf, three of those coming locally, topped by a hard-fought neck victory in a race restricted to Florida-breds on May 7. Although Ward said arguably her most notable performance came on graduation day over the synthetic strip, when Musical Design, a Green Lane Farm South homebred by Maclean’s Music, won her maiden impressively as the favorite with jockey Frankie Dettori aboard.

“The owner wanted to import Frankie for this race on Friday because he said having him win on her last winter was the highlight of her career,” Ward said with a laugh. “I told him that wasn’t possible, but I did get him the meet’s leading rider ,Edgard Zayas.”

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Musical Design has not started since finishing a distant second behind the red-hot All That Magic under allowance conditions over the turf at Monmouth Park on July 28. All That Magic has since gone on to become a stakes winner and defeated a tough allowance field at Keeneland in her most recent outing.

Musical Design is “kind of a light filly who does well with spacing between races and we’ve kind of been looking for the right race to bring her back,” Ward explained when asked about the layoff. “She’s shooting good and ready to go now.”

Li Li Bear, a beaten favorite in each of her last two starts, and Call Me Spicy, who had a three-race win streak snapped when finishing off the board as a tepid 2-1 choice under similar conditions in her latest outing, will both look to make amends and are certain to take plenty of backing along with Musical Design. So too will Miss Sakamoto, who has hit the board in each of her last five starts against similarly conditioned opposition on the grass in Maryland and New Jersey before returning locally for the winter.

Sanchez’s trio consists of Soy Una Dama, Mistica Traviesa, and Ornela, all of whom shipped to this country from their native Chile earlier this year. Soy Una Dama is arguably the quickest and was the most accomplished member of the group in South America, having won five of her eight starts at the Hipodromo in Chile, although she’ll be testing the Tapeta surface for the first time on Friday.

Ward says he will work in and out of eight stalls at Gulfstream starting around the first week of December while also keeping a second contingent this winter at Payson Park.

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“I’m really looking forward to racing over the new turf course down there,” Ward said by phone from Kentucky on Wednesday. “I’m going to send some dirt and turf horses to Gulfstream to begin with while leaving most of my synthetic horses in Kentucky, where the purses are better during the winter.”

Among the turf specialists Ward said might make a start over the new course here in December is the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint winner Twilight Gleaming.

“She is doing quite well at the present time and the Stonestreet team has picked out a stakes there for her around Christmas,” said Ward, referring to the $100,000 Abundantia on Dec. 31.

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