Ward looks to stay red hot with Landed in Bay Ridge
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OZONE PARK, N.Y. – One of the keys to success as a trainer is placing your horses in the right spots. When it comes to Aqueduct in 2025, few trainers have done that at a higher percentage than Wesley Ward.
Ward has gone 14 for 25 with four stakes wins at Aqueduct in 2025. In addition to that success locally, Ward is on a general heater over the last month. Since Nov. 26, he has won 13 races from his last 24 starters at five tracks.
“We’re on a roll,” Ward said. “You got to savor those wins because it can go the other way just as quick.”
Sunday, Ward will look to cap his wildly successful year at Aqueduct and continue his national hot streak when he sends out Landed in the $125,000 Bay Ridge Stakes for New York-bred fillies going one mile. Landed was responsible for one of Ward’s 2025 Aqueduct stakes victories when she won the Broadway in February. That was the third statebred stakes victory of Landed’s career. In 2024, she won the Bouwerie and Fleet Indian at Saratoga.
Ward had Landed entered in the $250,000 My Charmer Stakes at Turfway Park on Dec. 21 but scratched to run in this spot. Ward surmised that the Bay Ridge “was a better fit” for Landed, a daughter of Omaha Beach owned by Roy and Gretchen Jackson’s Lael Stables.
“She likes the track, that’s for sure. She’s doing well. She never missed any works,” Ward said. “We shipped into Rob Atras’s barn. He’s always done a phenomenal job for me. His record with my horses is better than mine.”
Since winning the Broadway, Landed has only run twice. She finished third in an open-company race on dirt at Keeneland in April and was fourth in a lucrative second-level allowance on turf at Kentucky Downs on Sept. 4.
The Bay Ridge is run as a one-turn mile. Landed won a maiden race in 2023 here at a mile and then was second to My Mane Squeeze in the Maddie May, one of two losses in six starts against in New York-bred company. John Velazquez is in town to ride Landed on Sunday.
Bernietakescharge won a pair of open-company races around one turn here last winter, including the Heavenly Prize Stakes. There, she defeated Weigh the Risks, who came back to win three straight races, including the Go for Wand Stakes here on Dec. 13. Trained by Dominick Schettino, Bernietakescharge comes out of a runner-up finish behind Valtellina in the Empire Distaff at 1 1/8 miles on Oct. 25.
The 3-year-old filly Atlantis Queen ships up for red-hot conditioner Gary Capuano. The daughter of Mitole is out of the mare No Hayne No Gayne, who finished second in the 2018 Bay Ridge Stakes. Atlantis Queen is coming off a 5 1/4-length allowance win at Laurel Park on Nov. 15.
“She ran a really big race last time out. She’s been really good since we stretched her out some,” Capuano said. “She’s a New York-bred. We thought we’d give it a shot. There’s a couple of tough ones in there, but she’s training well. Hopefully, she gives a good account of herself.”
Apprentice Yedsit Hazlewood is in from Maryland for the ride. Since it’s a stakes, Hazelwood doesn’t get the benefit of his five-pound weight allowance in the Bay Ridge.
Soloshot, second in a division of the New York Stallion Series; Cupid’s Heart; Fast and Frisky; and Five to Two complete the field.
Ward will seek more N.Y. success
While he won’t have a stable in New York for the winter, Ward has a couple of horses he would like to run at Aqueduct during the winter.
Floodlites, who won a first-level allowance here on Dec. 13, will likely return to Aqueduct for a second-level allowance. A gelding by City of Light, Floodlites won a six-furlong race here by 1 3/4 lengths and earned a 94 Beyer Speed Figure. A successful run in another allowance could perhaps lead to the Grade 3, $175,000 Tom Fool Stakes on Feb. 28.
Ward said Running Away, who won the Busanda Stakes here last January and the Grade 3 Monmouth Oaks in the summer, returned to the work tab on Dec. 18, breezing a half-mile at Keeneland. Ward said he would like to run Running Away at Aqueduct this winter, but a race like the $125,000 Ladies on Jan. 17 could come up too soon on the calendar.
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