Ward temporarily trains four stars at Turfway

The best horses to step onto the Turfway Park main track this week were there Tuesday, a dark day, when trainer Wesley Ward sent four Breeders’ Cup starters from Keeneland to work over Turfway’s synthetic Polytrack surface.

Among his many workers Tuesday were Hootenanny and Luck of the Kitten, the one-two finishers from the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, as well as Juvenile Fillies Turf runner-up Sunset Glow and Turf Sprint third-place finisher Undrafted.

The works were the first from that quartet since they breezed at Turfway on Feb. 11 – a delay caused by snow and frigid temperatures in Kentucky, Ward said.

If weather forecasts prove accurate, with temperatures rising into the 50s in the middle of next week, Ward’s horses won’t have to make the trek up to Turfway any longer. If the temperatures warm to that extent, Keeneland is expected to open its main track for training, and the horses will breeze there, Ward said.

They had been traveling to Turfway to breeze because the Keeneland main track is now comprised of dirt after years of having Polytrack, a material that handled precipitation and cold weather better than dirt. Only its small training track, still with Polytrack, has remained open during the harsh winter months, and Ward doesn’t like breezing his horses around its tight turns.

Ward is targeting his horses for spring returns at Keeneland in April, though an interrupted schedule this past month leaves little margin for error until the start of the Keeneland meet.

“It might compromise them getting ready,” he acknowledged. “Well, certain ones yes, certain ones no, depending on the types they are and if they need much training or not.”

Judy the Beauty, Ward’s champion female sprinter of last year, has not yet recorded a work, though her initial 2015 training has begun. He said her first work will come after the Keeneland main track is opened.

Ward’s intention had been to kick off her season in the Grade 1 Madison at Keeneland on April 4, but whether she can be readied in time for it remains to be seen.

Churchill will open soon for training

Some 70 miles down the road from Keeneland, Churchill Downs is expected to open its main track next week, after warmer weather thaws its frozen, snow-covered surface. The track opened for horses to be stabled there Friday, track spokesman John Asher said.

Churchill Downs Trackside – a training track located approximately 10 minutes from Churchill – also is open for stabling, though its track is not expected to open until March 16 after undergoing renovations, Asher said.

Trackside visitors in the coming weeks will notice a significant change: No longer does the simulcast facility on the grounds exist. A former harness track that was remodeled in the 1990s when converted into a simulcast parlor by Churchill, it fell in a state of disrepair after no longer being in use since 2012. It was demolished a couple of weeks ago, and the space will remain vacant, at least for the time being, Asher said.

“It was like an old house that someone had long moved out of – it just had deteriorated,” Asher said. “Ultimately, it was just an unsafe situation, and we made the decision to raze it.”

Asher called the decision to tear down the old building “bittersweet,” noting the many memories that horsemen and horseplayers had from the place, ranging from old harness races to the days when fans packed the house for simulcasting, long before at-home wagering became the rage.

Purchased in 1992 by Churchill Downs, Trackside was the old Louisville Downs, a harness track that was ahead of its time, with phone wagering and its own cable channel with horse-racing simulcasts shown on it.

Churchill renamed the property The Sports Spectrum and turned into a Las Vegas-style race and sports book, but as improvements were made to the main Churchill facility that mirrored its offerings, it became outdated.

It was last used in 2012 for a spillover crowd wishing to watch Derby Day simulcasting, but before that, it served as a multiuse facility, notably holding a Kentucky Derby post-position draw as well as two now-defunct horse sales, Asher said.