Ward focusing his efforts in Kentucky this winter

The lack of prominence from the Wesley Ward stable at Gulfstream Park this winter might be conspicuous – if not downright alarming – until you consider what’s behind it.

Ward had just one measly win and eight seconds from his first 24 starts at the nearly 3-month-old championship meet at Gulfstream in south Florida. It’s a stark departure from the status quo: Ward was in the Gulfstream top 10 in each of the last three years when averaging almost 22 wins a meet.

Ward, however, is not bothered. Not only has he won a ridiculous 16 of 30 starts at Turfway Park in northern Kentucky – he was 4 for 7 at the holiday meet Dec. 3-31 and was 12 for 23 through Thursday at the current winter-spring meet – but he also is busy restocking his stable with 2-year-olds whom he’ll be fully prepared to show off when the Keeneland spring meet opens April 8 in Lexington, Ky.

“I’ve spent a lot of my time working with the 2-year-olds at Circle S Farm in Florida,” Ward said by phone this week while on a brief and rare trip to New Orleans, where he won a Thursday allowance with the 4-year-old colt Chiltern Street. “We’ll be shipping a bunch up to Kentucky in about three weeks.”

While Ward has his active runners in Florida split mostly between the Palm Meadows training center and Gulfstream Park West, he also has maintained a string of about 30 horses throughout the winter at Keeneland. From there, some have been sent on a short van ride to race at Turfway, where purse levels continue to lag well below those of other tracks (which helps to explain Ward’s dominance). Some Ward horses, such as Acapulco, have even breezed frequently over the Polytrack surface at Turfway, even though “I’ve only got shipping stalls there,” said Ward, who will turn 48 on Thursday.

Acapulco, the winner of the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes last June at Royal Ascot in England, made her 3-year-old debut Feb. 19 at Turfway with a 1 1/2-length triumph in a first-level optional-claiming race at six furlongs. Irad Ortiz Jr. was in from New York to ride the Scat Daddy filly.

“She had to run a 9 on the Ragozin sheets to win, so it was a pretty strong race,” said Ward. “She was really tired afterward. Going in, I thought we’d have speed to spare, but she really had to run to beat that other filly [runner-up Sweet Ruth E., trained by Mark Thomas], and it was eight lengths back to the third horse.”

Ward said he does not intend to run Acapulco back in the Grade 3 Bourbonette Oaks on the April 2 Spiral Stakes card at Turfway. The Bourbonette goes at a mile, which Ward said “is a little far, at least right now. She came from off the pace in the Ascot race and again Friday, so we might think about more distance for her somewhere down the road.”

Ward said he has no major prospects for the $500,000 Spiral, which offers 50 Kentucky Derby qualifying points to the winner, nor for the local prep, the $100,000 John Battaglia Memorial on March 12.

“Some horses I had hopes for, they haven’t come around the way I wanted,” he said.

The Battaglia is the only stakes at Turfway between now and Spiral Day.

◗ After racing four days a week from December to February, Turfway shifts to a three-day week starting next week, with Thursdays now dark.

The announcing duties for the rest of the meet will have Jimmy McNerney calling Friday and Saturday nights and Mike Battaglia calling Sundays.

Battaglia, 66, revealed in December that he is easing himself out of the announcer’s booth at Turfway, where he has been calling since 1972. He will continue in his role as linemaker and in-house television host at Keeneland as well as linemaker at Churchill Downs. Next winter at Turfway, he is looking to work in a new capacity that involves improved services for bettors.

Sunday cards will continue to consist of just seven races, said Turfway racing secretary Tyler Picklesimer, as the track tries to maintain field size, which was averaging 8.74 horses per race through last weekend.

◗ It looks like Shogood will be one-and-done at Turfway.

After Shogood led throughout in winning the WEBN Stakes on Feb. 20, trainer Scott Becker contemplated running him back in the Battaglia before affirming this week that he intends to keep the colt sprinting.

“I think we’re going to pass on the Turfway race and concentrate on races under a mile this summer,” said Becker. “It suits him better.”

Shogood, an Illinois-bred owned by Bill Stiritz, was at 5-2 in winning the WEBN by 1 1/2 lengths. In his previous start, the colt finished eighth at 54-1 in the one-mile Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn Park.

◗ Albin Jimenez is well on his way to another riding crown at Turfway. Through Thursday, Jimenez had notched 50 wins since the winter-spring meet began Jan. 1, precisely double the total of his closest pursuer atop the jockey standings, Rodney Prescott.

Jimenez, 24, has won or tied for the riding title at the last five Turfway meets, dating to the 2013 holiday meet.