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Wesley Ward Joins TDN Writers’ Room

Holding a typically strong hand of 2-year-olds heading into Future Stars Friday at the Breeders’ Cup Nov. 6, trainer Wesley Ward joined the TDN Writers’ Room presented by Keeneland Wednesday morning. Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Ward talked about Golden Pal, the exciting son of Uncle Mo and Lady Shipman who figures to go favored in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, multiple group stakes winner in Europe Campanelle (Ire) and why he’s so willing to run his fillies against the boys.

Telling the story of how he came to train Golden Pal for Randall Lowe, who owned Lady Shipman, Ward said he almost got a chance to train the mare herself and only a veterinary setback let him keep her son in his barn for Lowe.

“When [Lowe] had the mare, he had reached out and asked if I was interested in training and it just didn’t come to fruition,” he said. “His ultimate pick was Kiaran McLaughlin. I had followed Lady Shipman’s career and was a big fan of hers. Then I went and saw the colt in the sale. I loved him. He was my pick of the sale last year at Keeneland September. We tried to buy the horse for Coolmore and we had a couple months for them to take possession to see if he could get over a minor issue he had, and unfortunately, it’s just a minor thing that he was born with. He has that issue today, and he didn’t pass the vet. So being as I put a couple months in on the horse, [Lowe] sent him back to Ocala to give him a little bit of time off from the breaking and right around the first of the year, I called him back and I said, ‘Look, I’d still be really, really interested in training the colt.’ He thought about it for a couple of weeks, then he sent him up to Keeneland and we’ve had him ever since. He’s just been a joy to train, I’m a big fan and I’m looking forward to Breeders’ Cup.”

Ward continued his unprecedented run of success for an American trainer in Europe with Campanelle, a 190,000 guineas Tattersalls October purchase by Ben McElroy who parlayed a Gulfstream maiden win into scores in the G1 Prix Morny at Deauville and G2 Queen Mary S. at Royal Ascot this summer. The undefeated bay figures to be among the favorites in a contentious renewal of the Juvenile Fillies Turf.

“She’s a little different than the horses that I’ve brought to Ascot and to the Morny in years past,” said Ward. “She’s got a big, long stride and she’s fast. So my thought always going into the Morny was that she would go a mile. Even though she has a sprinter’s pedigree, she’s a big filly. And with that long stride, I took the blinkers off going into the Morny to sort of help her to stretch her speed for this particular race. And it was fortunate, we were lucky. She won a big race that day with Frankie and she got right back here to Keeneland. Ever since then, even before the Morny, this was the plan with this particular race.”

Asked about his willingness to run fillies against males, Ward said, “I took a lot of heat for it at first for running 2-year-old fillies against the colts, but I just think it’s pretty easy. If you line a bunch of us up with some women and some men, some women are going to be faster than the guys you put them with, so it’s easy to figure where you’re at. I think a lot of fillies develop a lot quicker. If you look at the 2-year-old in training sales, the majority of the faster times will be fillies rather than the colts, and the colts will come on late. I like to take advantage of that. The majority of the time, especially in sprints, if you have the fastest horse and you break well, you’re going to win early on. I’ll zero in and the faster ones come to a head real quick, early in the spring. If that’s a filly, I’m more apt to run them against the colts.”

Elsewhere on the show, the writers broke down where every major division stands heading into the Breeders’ Cup and, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, talked about what it means for the industry that stallion farms are slashing stud fees nearly across the board. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version.

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Kirk Robison Talks ‘Horse of a Lifetime’ Jackie’s Warrior On Writers’ Room

Having been involved in horse racing for decades, Kirk Robison knows how much luck plays a part in finding success. He admits as much. But perseverance also pays, and Robison has finally seen the fruits of his labor pay off at the highest level of the game, as his undefeated Jackie’s Warrior (Maclean’s Music) is set to head into the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile as a heavy favorite, with a chance to solidify a divisional championship to boot.

Wednesday morning, Robison joined the TDN Writers’ Room presented by Keeneland as the Green Group Guest of the Week to discuss his emerging superstar, the breaking news of his deal with Spendthrift for the colt’s breeding rights and what it means to have a potential Breeders’ Cup or GI Kentucky Derby winner after all these years supporting the game he loves.

Already with runaway victories in the GII Saratoga Special S. and GI Runhappy Hopeful S., Jackie’s Warrior added a devastatingly easy 5 1/2-length victory in the GI Champagne S. Saturday at Belmont.

“I read that they’ve run the Champagne since 1867, and I appreciate the fact there’s a lot of horses that were in there that are in the history books,” Robison said. To win that race is just incredible. First Landing and Dehere were the only 2-year-olds in the last 60 years that swept the Saratoga Special, Hopeful and Champagne. And now our colt did it. So putting it in that perspective, I appreciate every one of these races.”

The score earned a 100 Beyer, giving the bay clearly the two top figures of all 2-year-olds this year, and stamped him as a clear Juvy favorite. Robison said that while he’s taking nothing for granted, he likes Jackie’s Warrior’s chances to run his record to five-for-five.

“He hasn’t gone two turns yet. He hasn’t run at Keeneland. That other colt [GI Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity hero Essential Quality] already won a two-turn race there at the distance, so that’s a huge advantage for him, but our numbers, if he can carry that speed around two turns, our colt’s going to be very, very hard to beat,” he said. “The numbers don’t lie. And I watched the replays of the Hopeful and Champagne a number of times–he’s just a blur out there. I never dreamed I’d have a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile favorite, now we’ve got to go out and do it. But I’m extremely confident.”

News broke Wednesday morning that Robison made a deal with Spendthrift Farm to stand Jackie’s Warrior at the top-flight stallion outfit after closing out his racing career.

“They wanted to buy a part of the horse early on, after he won the Special. And I said, I’m going to wait until maybe he wins the Hopeful,” he recalled. “I wanted to control his racing career, and I got that. They agreed to that. So Steve Asmussen and I are going to manage the horse until he’s retired. I get all the purse money during his racing career. I’ve got some bonus structure in there from Spendthrift. At the end of his racing career, he goes to them and they manage the stud career.”

Asked how early he knew his colt was a runner, Robison reflected on a conversation he had with a different Asmussen as the horse was being broken at the family’s Laredo, Texas training center.

“I talk to Keith once in a while about how they’re doing,” he said. “He doesn’t get too ahead of the curve on who’s running well because he doesn’t do much with them as far as asking for speed. But I told him early on, like February or March, ‘I want to win the Hopeful someday with a 2-year-old.’ He actually said, ‘This might be your colt.'”

While Robison can’t help but dream about winning the Derby, he’s realistic about his colt’s potential distance limitations. Sire Maclean’s Music is more of a sprint influence, and his dam never won beyond 6 1/2 furlongs, so while Robison would love to win the Derby, he’s only interested in running with a top chance.

“You can’t not think about it, but I think I’m pretty good about measuring and managing my expectations,” he said. “His mother was a pure stone cold sprinter. So to even get a mile or a mile and a sixteenth could be the upper limits of where this horse goes. If we could be lucky enough to win a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile or Breeders’ Cup Sprint later on, it’d be satisfying. I only want to go to the Derby with a horse that can run one, two, three. I don’t want to be 20-1 and run up the track.”

Robison reflected on when he and Asmussen bought Jackie’s Warrior for the bargain price of $95,000 at Keeneland September, and spoke about how that elusive force of luck shined on him with a horse who’s done everything right since the hammer dropped.

“Steve called him an old soul,” Robison said. “He’s like a 6-year-old gelding. He takes everything in. He’s easy on himself. He looks around the paddock like, ‘OK, got to go to work.’ He’s a very smart horse. Takes care of himself and doesn’t get too worked up and use up all of his energy. So he’s the horse of a lifetime for a guy like me. Other people may have multiple Grade I winners, I don’t. And he may be the last one I ever have. How much can you say about luck in this business? A lot of people were not willing to pay 100,000 for this horse. So they stopped at 95 and Steve got him. If this horse had gone to 150 or 200, we might not even own the horse. So I’m extremely grateful for what we have. When you get one, you have to say, ‘Thank my lucky stars, I got one.'”

Elsewhere on the show, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, the writers paid tribute to the great Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}), who was retired from racing this week after an illustrious career. Plus they broke down the Ken McPeek vs. Matt Muzikar beef that stemmed from last week’s podcast and celebrated the Grade I success of the show’s unofficial mascot, Harvey’s Lil Goil (American Pharoah). Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version.

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Gaffalione Agent Responds to McPeek Criticism

The finger pointing over Tyler Gaffalione’s decision not to ride Swiss Skydiver (Daredevil) in the GI Preakness S. continued Thursday when Gaffalione’s agent Matt Muzikar said trainer Ken McPeek’s version of the events was “nowhere near the truth.”

On this week’s edition of the TDN Writers’ Room podcast, McPeek sharply criticized both Muzikar and Gaffalione, claiming that the two reneged on an agreement to ride the filly in the Preakness.

“I announced that we’re going to run in the Preakness and Tyler was on board,” McPeek said on the podcast. “By maybe 6:00 that night, his agent tells us that he can’t ride. And I’m like, ‘Look, you’ve given us a two-race commitment [GI Kentucky Oaks and Preakness].’ He said, ‘Oh well, sorry, I’ve got to ride for Chad Brown at Keeneland.’ I said, ‘You can’t do this. It’s dishonorable.’ I’ve been doing this for 35 years and I’ve never had something like that happen. I still find it dishonorable. Shame on Tyler Gaffalione and his agent.”

When Muzikar told McPeek his rider would not be accepting the mount in the Preakness, McPeek was left to scramble before lining up Robby Albarado.

About the only thing that Muzikar and McPeek agree upon is that Gaffalione did agree to a two-race commitment. But Muzikar said that after the Oaks McPeek told him Swiss Skydiver would be making her next start in the GI Juddmonte Spinster S., which was run the day after the Preakness.

“Maybe two days after the Kentucky Oaks he called me and said he didn’t know what the second race was going to be, that it was between the Spinster, the Preakness and the [GI] Queen Elizabeth,” Muzikar said. “I told him that I needed to know as soon as possible. We talked again Saturday, nine days before the draw for the Preakness, and he told me she was going in the Spinster.”

Muzikar said that after he was told that Swiss Skydiver was going to run in the Spinster, he started lining up mounts for Gaffalione. He turned down all mounts on the Preakness card and accepted mounts for the weekend races at Keeneland. Gaffalione did not win a race on the Oct. 3 card at Keeneland but had several live horses, including GI First Lady S. favorite Newspaperofrecord (Ire) (Lope de Vega {Ire}) and GI Shadwell Turf Mile S. favorite Analyze It (Point of Entry).

Muzikar said that McPeek did not tell him he was going to run in the Preakness until the Saturday before the race, by which time he had already made commitments to Chad Brown, Brendan Walsh and others to ride for them the same day at Keeneland.

“I called him and said, ‘What are you doing?'” Muzikar said. “He said, ‘Matt, we are running in he Preakness. Handle it.’ Then he hung up the phone.”

Muzikar said that it was too late to get out of his commitments at Keeneland.

“What did he expect us to do? Not take business for the Preakness card or at Keeneland and sit there and wait for Kenny McPeek because the world revolves around him?” Muzikar said. “Knocking me and the jockey, he crossed a line.”

On the podcast, McPeek said that after Gaffalione worked Swiss Skydiver at Churchill Downs the Saturday before the Preakness he told the trainer how eager he was to ride her in the Triple Crown event.

“Tyler worked her and then Tyler and I came into my office and he said, ‘Oh my God, that’s the best she’s felt all year. Let’s go. Let’s do it.’ I announced we were going to run in the Preakness and Tyler was on board,” he said.

Muzikar said that McPeek reached out to Gaffalione.

“He said that he was going to go on Twitter, that he was going to knock me, that he was going to knock the jockey,” Muzikar said. “He told Tyler he should fire me and force me to take the mount in the Preakness.”

The agent said he was particularly upset that McPeek chose to criticize Gaffalione.

“Tyler had nothing to do with this whole situation, so I don’t like him knocking the jockey,” he said. “Tyler is the greatest kid and the greatest jock I have had in the 26 years I have been doing this. He did nothing to him.”

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Kenny McPeek Lets Loose On TDN Writers’ Room

It takes a certain kind of personality to enter a filly against the boys in a leg of the Triple Crown, and Kenny McPeek showed all of that personality on Wednesday’s TDN Writers’ Room podcast presented by Keeneland. Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, McPeek talked about his successful, outside-the-box campaign of Peter Callahan’s GI Preakness S. winner Swiss Skydiver (Daredevil), why he subbed in Robby Albarado to ride the chestnut, his approach to training 2-year-olds and much more.

Swiss Skydiver has run nine times this year, starting her campaign Jan. 18 at Tampa. Winning five of those starts, she beat 22 of 23 males combined in her two attempts against them and raced at nine different tracks. Already a top contender for champion 3-year-old filly, Saturday’s scintillating and game Preakness victory over GI Kentucky Derby hero Authentic (Into Mischief) has vaulted Swiss Skydiver into a wide-open Horse of the Year discussion, and McPeek was asked what he thinks she has to do to earn that trophy.

“She needs to run well in the Breeders’ Cup,” he said. “We haven’t decided where we’re going to run yet [Classic or Distaff]. We’ve still got some analyzing to do of who’s going to be out there and possible starters, but she’s run all year. If they call it Horse of the Year, she ran all year, so what else can you do? I think it’d be fitting, but she’s just really solid and that’s more credit to her than it is me. She kept telling us she wanted to go and the schedule really lined up well for us over the course of the year. And the fact that she ran East Coast, West Coast, North, South, Midwest, she’s entertained the racing world all year, all over the country.”

In addition to bouncing around to different venues, Swiss Skydiver has been ridden by six different jockeys through this campaign, with Albarado taking the reins for the first time in the Preakness. McPeek aired his frustrations as to why Tyler Gaffalione didn’t take the call.

“I announced that we’re going to run in the Preakness and Tyler was on board,” he said. “By maybe 6:00 that night, his agent tells us that he can’t ride. And I’m like, ‘Look, you’ve given us a two-race commitment [GI Kentucky Oaks and Preakness].’ He said, ‘Oh well, sorry, I’ve got to ride for Chad Brown at Keeneland.’ I said, ‘You can’t do this. It’s dishonorable.’ I’ve been doing this for 35 years and I’ve never had something like that happen. I still find it dishonorable. Shame on Tyler Gaffalione and his agent. So all the riders in New York were taken, most of the Keeneland riders were taken, and Robby Albarado had been breezing horses for me on a regular basis. I called him and said, ‘Robby, here’s the deal, I’m going to tell Peter Callahan you’re going down to Baltimore, Rob is filling in for the Preakness.’ He says, ‘All right, I’m ready.’ It gives me goosebumps thinking that we pulled it off. Sometimes you’ve got to take a negative and turn it into a positive. Robby needed the break and he was hungry. He knows what to do, and he deserves to ride more horses than he’s been riding. And I think he pretty well proved it. Put him on a big stage and he can handle it.”

Also touched on in the wide-ranging interview were McPeek’s GI Darley Alcibiades romper Simply Ravishing (Laoban), why he stepped away from training in the mid-2000s and why making video and data more accessible is the improvement he sees as most necessary to change racing’s fortunes.

Elsewhere on the show, the writers recapped and analyzed the rest of the action from a monster weekend of stakes across the globe and, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, discussed how the demise of Calder is the latest in a troubling trend of Churchill-owned tracks shutting down. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version.

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