Ward backing select team to make Breeders’ Cup impact

Wesley Ward will make the journey from Kentucky to California optimistic of further success at the Breeders’ Cup, with the high-class juvenile pair of Schwarzenegger and Outfielder set to lead his small but select team into battle at Del Mar.

The Keeneland-based trainer has saddled six winners at the prestigious end-of-year championships, including three successive victories in the the Juvenile Turf Sprint, with Four Wheel Drive (2019), Golden Pal (2020) and Twilight Gleaming (2021) all successful.

This year’s candidate for what is the first race of the Breeders’ Cup is Schwarzenegger, who was narrowly beaten on his Saratoga debut after building up a huge early lead, but made no mistake at the second time of asking in the Listed Summer Stakes at Keeneland.

Ward said: “He’s a high-quality horse and we had several scratches with him early on because of rain – his races on the grass got rained off and switched to the dirt and because of that he probably wasn’t 100 per cent fit for his first run.

“Johnny (Velazquez) had breezed him so many times, starting off in April here at Keeneland, and he knew he was a quality horse, but when he broke he opened up way too many lengths and Johnny said he didn’t realise he was that far in front.

“He called me after the race and said he didn’t realise until he got back to the jockeys’ room and watched the replay and the announcer called him eight lengths in front!

“He felt like he was just kind of cruising, but I think the main reason he got beat was fitness and that race tightened him right down fitness-wise.

“We didn’t have to train him that hard into the stakes race which he won and I’ve just got a feeling that he’s going to love that course out at Del Mar a lot more than he does Keeneland. With the grass at Keeneland they can kind of sink into it sometimes, as opposed the California and Florida grass where they can just skip over it because it’s so firm.

“We’re also cutting back in distance because his first two races were over five and a half furlongs and this is five furlongs, so that should be good as well, and whereas sometimes at the end of the year horses are tired after being on the go through the spring and summer, this guy is lightly raced and is really coming into his own.”

Outfielder, whose ownership group includes Amo Racing supremo Kia Joorabchian and former Major League Baseball star Jayson Werth, looked another two-year-old star off the Ward production line when bolting up on his introduction at Churchill Downs and while a planned trip to Royal Ascot was aborted following a minor setback, he did belatedly travel to Europe in August for the Prix Morny at Deauville, in which he finished fourth.

The Speightstown colt will step up to a mile for the first time in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf – a race Ward won with Hootenanny in 2014 – and he appears one of the biggest threats to Aidan O’Brien’s hot favourite Gstaad, who is drawn widest of all in stall 14.

“Outfielder is a big, rangy colt and he ran a good race in the Morny. I think he’s a miler, especially on the grass around the turns – that’s always an advantage to a fast horse,” Ward continued.

“It’s unfortunate for Aidan that he drew the far outside draw with his horse, whereas my guy is in gate three so he can bounce out and hug the turn.

“If he gets a good break and can run the first half-mile at a comfortable pace without going too fast, then we should be in really good shape.”

The trainer is double-handed in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint on the dirt, with stable companions Nakatomi and Whatchatalkinabout renewing rivalry after finishing first and third respectively in a Group Two at Keeneland in early October.

The latter is a 40-1 shot with Coral and Ladbrokes, but Ward feels he may have been underestimated, adding: “He’s a very high quality horse and he’s drawn the far outside post position of 14, which I love for him, because he’s such a big horse and he’ll be able to get out and secure a good position.

“He probably should have won his last race, which I won with my other horse Nakatomi. Whatchatalkinabout got pinned on the inside and he (jockey Emisael Jaramillo) could never let him run.

“Had he had a clean trip I really thought he would have beat Nakatomi, who ran a fantastic race and won, but I’ve found a lot of times over the years that if a horse doesn’t give 110 per cent effort because of a troubled trip and finishes a race with speed to spare, they can come back and really run a big one, so I really like Whatchatalkinabout at long odds.”