Wards of Track Are Continuing Family Tradition

With her mother, two Jack Russell terriers and one cat in the car, Donna Ward drove from South Florida to Lexington, Ky., earlier in the week. Waiting for her at the other end were 42 horses that had been shipped ahead from Palm Beach Downs and Gulfstream Park, plus Hero’s Tribute, the colt she will send into the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, where one of Saturday’s three final important Kentucky Derby preps will be run.

Also on Saturday, the Arkansas Derby and the Wood Memorial will be run, and Donna Ward’s husband, trainer John Ward, will be at Aqueduct to saddle their more widely regarded Derby contender, Monarchos, in the Wood. The Wards have been married for 28 years, but sometimes the logistics of the sport keep them apart. Donna Ward, an experienced horsewoman before she met her husband, knew their life would be helter-skelter, since she was marrying into a fourth-generation horse family that had been chasing the Kentucky Derby since World War I.

John Ward grew up in a white frame house on the family’s 100-acre farm about a mile from Keeneland. Starting in 1916, his grandfather, John Sherrill Ward, made three serious runs in successive years at the Derby, his best finish a second in 1918 for Escoba, who was a length behind Exterminator, the durable gelding they used to call “Old Bones.”

John Ward’s father, John T. Ward Sr., had the reputation of being one of the best yearling breakers in Kentucky, and with his father ill, John himself broke Forego, before the future three-time horse of the year was sent to Sherrill Ward, John’s uncle, to train.

“Forego was precocious,” Ward said. “In one of his first workouts, over a muddy track at Keeneland, they caught him in a minute for five furlongs. He needed to be gelded, everybody agreed on that, but none of us wanted to be the one to make the recommendation.”

In the 1955 Derby, when John Ward was only 10, his uncle Sherrill finished third with Summer Tan, behind the Swaps-Nashua juggernaut. In Forego’s Derby, 1973, Sherrill Ward’s horse was in tight quarters nearing the far turn and bounced off the rail before jockey Pete Anderson could continue their run. Forego finished fourth, but of course Secretariat was the real excuse for everyone in the race.

The Ward clan’s most recent Derby foray came in 1995, when John Ward saddled Jambalaya Jazz and Pyramid Peak, who finished 15th and 17th, respectively, in a 19-horse field at Churchill Downs.

“Pyramid Peak drew an inside post [No. 3] and was caught inside an absolute speedball [the filly Serena’s Song] going into the first turn,” Ward said. “Jambalaya Jazz had had too much racing going into the Derby. I had burned him up ahead of time. Running those two horses in the Derby has taught me a lot about things not to do for the Derby. There’s such a thing as training horses and then there’s training Derby horses. There’s a uniqueness about the Derby. When you think you have a good one, everything you do from the time that horse is a yearling relates to the Derby.”

Monarchos and Hero’s Tribute race for longtime Ward client John Oxley, who runs an oil and gas exploration company in Tulsa, Okla. Oxley, who also raced Pyramid Peak and Jambalaya Jazz, bought Monarchos when he was an unraced 2-year-old, for $170,000, and he paid $150,000 for Hero’s Tribute at a yearling auction. After Saturday’s races, Monarchos will have run four times this year and Hero’s Tribute three times entering the Kentucky Derby on May 5. Monarchos, the Florida Derby winner, was made the 4-5 morning-line favorite Thursday when five other horses--Congaree, Richly Blended, It’s So Simple, Paging and Voodoo--were entered for the $750,000 Wood. At Keeneland, Hero’s Tribute is 3-1 on the morning line, with Dollar Bill the 9-5 favorite, in the $750,000 Blue Grass.

Despite Monarchos’ credentials--three consecutive wins at Gulfstream Park this winter--Donna Ward feels Hero’s Tribute is being short-changed in any assessment of the family stable’s Derby prospects. This contrary view comes with prejudice, she’ll also concede, since she has been exercising the son of Sea Hero, the 1993 Kentucky Derby winner, at Palm Beach Downs, near Gulfstream, for the last several months.

“Hero’s Tribute is my favorite,” she said. “I think he’s a very special horse. He’s very big, and I think he’s as equally talented as Monarchos. The only difference is that he might not be as smart as Monarchos.”

Donna and John Ward both went to school in Lexington, and later studied at the University of Kentucky there, but they didn’t meet until both had hunters on the show circuit.

“We were good friends before we were married,” she said. “That’s made for a very good marriage.”

Donna Ward is associated more often with the fillies in the barn, perhaps because she gets on their backs more than the colts. John Ward, who is a grounded trainer, surveying the situations from off horseback, gave his wife credit for Beautiful Pleasure from the get-go, even calling her the real trainer of the filly. Beautiful Pleasure, back for another year, won the 1999 Breeders’ Cup Distaff and won an Eclipse award. “I can tell she’s about to get her game face on,” Donna said.

Donna was also deeply involved with Gal In A Ruckus, the Oxley filly who won the Kentucky Oaks, Churchill Downs’ companion race for 3-year-old fillies, in 1995.

“Fillies,” Donna Ward said, “can have more disposition problems than colts. It takes more time and effort to deal with that, and I get the luxury of not having to work with as many horses when I’m concentrating on the fillies. Patience with a filly can go a long way.”

It is Donna Ward who accepts the blame for Pyramid Peak running so poorly in the 1995 Derby.

“My inexperience [with a Derby horse] was one of the problems,” she said. “The colt went into the Derby with a sore foot because the shoeing schedule wasn’t right. He had been training well, but we had him reshod only about seven days before the race, which was a mistake.”

The Florida Derby, which Monarchos won by 4 1/2 lengths, was a month ago, prompting speculation that the colt may have peaked too soon.

“I don’t think so,” John Ward said. “We’ve given him plenty of time to put weight back on and get mentally sharp for the Wood.”

Jorge Chavez, one of New York’s best riders and winner of an Eclipse award in 1999, will ride Monarchos. They are three for three together. Chavez, who has ridden Hero’s Tribute in all six of his races--three of them wins--will give way to Jerry Bailey in the Blue Grass. Gary Stevens, in 1998, and Chavez are the only riders other than Bailey to win the Eclipse award for best jockey in the last six years.

“After [Hero’s Tribute ran third in the Louisiana Derby], I thought about adding blinkers,” John Ward said. “Instead, I added Bailey. He should fit this horse well. Hero’s Tribute won’t lose concentration this time.”

Horse Racing Notes

This is the field, in post-position order, for the Blue Grass: Invisible Ink, Millennium Wind, Hero’s Tribute, Dollar Bill, Bonnie Scot, Songandaprayer and A P Valentine. . . . Balto Star, winner of the Turfway Spiral Stakes, had been expected to set the pace in the $500,000 Arkansas Derby, but he drew a disadvantageous post 11 in a 12-horse field. Jamaican Run, third behind Point Given and I Love Silver in the San Felipe Stakes, ships in from Santa Anita, and will break from the No. 9 hole under Eddie Delahoussaye. . . . Thursday’s rain in New York is expected to be followed by partly cloudy weather today and Saturday. There should be a fast track for the Wood.