Flat racing on turf in Britain has a terribly low-key start to the season but that does not seem to have put off Wesley Ward, who has travelled thousands of miles to brighten up what would otherwise be a rather drab Saturday with a couple of his two-year-old rockets. At a time of year when some trainers in this country are just starting to think about getting the fat off their handicappers, Ward is so ready to get going that the whole of the US cannot provide enough opportunities.
“My horses are doing good, really good,” the 48-year-old said this week, “and in the States there’s no turf racing at all just now. It used to be that I could run my first horses on the Polytrack at Keeneland but then they took that away, so you’re forced to run on dirt.
“As I’ve been training through the winter I’ve been putting my horses on the grass in Florida and some of them are just far better on the grass than the dirt. These are horses with European pedigrees and at the moment, at home, there’s really nowhere for them to race.”
Hence Saturday’s exploratory mission in which two Ward-trained fillies make their racecourse debuts in England. New Trier goes to Kempton while Create A Dream will line up at Doncaster in the Brocklesby, which is usually the first juvenile race of the year, though its significance hardly ever goes much beyond that. It is worth £6,469 to the winner while New Trier could bag £4,270 at Kempton.
As Ward concedes, these races cannot themselves justify flying two horses across the Atlantic but he has been moved to bring them anyway because of his experience with Undrafted, who won a Group One sprint at Royal Ascot last summer. “The year prior he ran at Newmarket in the July Cup. He was only fourth but that helped him to come back the following year to win. He was seasoned, he knew in his mind what he had to do, he had run on a straight course, which we don’t do at home, and of course Frankie [Dettori] knew him. That helped us to win. These two races are on the same lines. We’re here to get the experience and I hope we’re going to get the win as well.”
Ward makes no effort to hide his enthusiasm for Create A Dream, who, he says, is “100% an Ascot filly”. These are words to make anyone sit up and pay attention, bearing in mind that Royal Ascot is where Ward has made his reputation in this country, with six wins since 2009, including a couple of sensationally dominant performances.
Create A Dream’s Ascot target is probably the Albany Stakes but, just to ram home the point about her ability, Ward is also considering the prestigious Coventry Stakes in which she would be racing against colts. “She’s an extremely talented filly, blessed with serious natural talent,” the trainer says. “Everything I match her with, she runs away from them.
“She’s very fit, very well schooled, she’s been to several tracks in Florida for an education. She’s even been to Gulfstream, so she shouldn’t be green at all. That being said, there’s a little bit of concern about the going [which will be soft]. Obviously, in Florida, she’s been running on firm ground, which she relishes. This is a little bit of an unknown.”
New Trier is not so highly regarded but Ward says: “I wouldn’t have brought her over if I didn’t think a lot of her. I don’t know what type of competition she’ll be facing but I hope she has a sincere chance of winning.”
The traditional view is that racehorses do not generally fly well but British trainers appear increasingly willing to cross the Atlantic for the right opportunity and Ward certainly has no concerns about the air miles clocked up by some of his younger charges. “They all travel great. In years past I went to France and every one of them ran right off the plane.”
Create A Dream and New Trier arrived on Monday, three days before their trainer, and have been based on the lush, enormous and tranquil Manton estate in Wiltshire, home to Brian Meehan and other trainers in recent years. “It’s a lovely facility,” Ward says. “Horses seem to thrive here.
“When they get here they start putting on weight, which is not what you might expect [having travelled so far from home]. But in the States they live at the racetrack, they’re stabled together. Here you train in yards, like what we would call training in farms. This is where we would send horses for rest and rehabilitation.”
The peaceful atmosphere of Manton has been occasionally interrupted this week by Ward’s teenage son, Riley, who has not been driving long and has been using the estate to get used to being on the left-hand side of the road. “The car has a few little brush-marks now,” Ward reports. “There have been one or two stewards’ inquiries.”
Even so, Ward Jr will apparently be trusted to drive his father the 190 miles north to Doncaster on Saturday. It may be time to invoke a phrase normally saved for Aintree next week: “Let’s hope everyone comes back safely.”
