'She looks a rocket' - Wesley Ward excited to saddle first-season sire runners

Just uttering the name Wesley Ward will strike fear into rival Royal Ascot trainers, with the US handler having dominated the juvenile sprint features at the royal meeting in recent years.

And this season looks likely to be no different, with Ward summoning a team of eight deadly sprinters to claim the royal jewels and escape back across the pond.

Yet among his runners this year are two favourites for today’s juvenile contests that will engross studious watching eyes from studmasters and breeders on both sides of the Tasman.

Ward has made the Queen Mary Stakes his own, claiming the five-furlong contest for fillies on three occasions in the last six years, most emphatically by seven-length destroyer Lady Aurelia in 2016 and most recently by Campanelle a year ago, who will bid to follow up in the Commonwealth Cup on Friday.

This year, he prepares seven-and-a-half-length maiden winner Twilight Gleaming for the race, who is by Widden Stud Victoria shuttler National Defense.

The filly is one of two winners so far for her Jean-Luc Lagardere- winning stallion, alongside Italian winner Filly Of Malta. But Twilight Gleaming, who landed her wide-margin victory at Belmont a day later, could, as with Campanelle, Lady Aurelia and Acapulco before her, prove the star act.

“This particular filly, she looks like all speed,” Ward told ANZ Bloodstock News. “She just looks like a rocket, a little bit smaller, but she’s the favourite right now in the Queen Mary, and she’s a favourite for a reason.”

National Defense covered 55 mares in his first northern hemisphere season at the Irish National Stud, where he stands for €8,000 (approx. AUD$12,500), with those numbers shrinking to 43 in his second year in 2020, but he may have unearthed a star from those limited first-crop numbers.

In Australia his appeal has proved more popular. Possessing the sought-after bloodline of Invincible Spirit, he covered 159 mares at an $11,000 fee in his first season when standing at Sun Stud in Victoria, and 88 in his second year, and now forms part of the Widden roster after their takeover of the stud earlier this year where he will stand for $9,900.

Within Twilight Gleaming’s close family we also find a horse who nearly changed the course of Australian racing history, being out of a sister to Invictus Prince who, in an otherwise unremarkable Australian career, ran Winx close as the $151 outsider in the Winx Stakes in 2018.

A £75,000 buy from the Goffs Orby Yearling Sale, Twilight Gleaming was sourced by bloodstock agent Ben McElroy, who also secured Campanelle for Ward’s stable.

Ward’s trusted agent also purchased the overwhelming Windsor Castle Stakes favourite Ruthin.

Ruthin in her box at the National Stud

The filly is a 3-1 chance in the 28-runner field, with no other horse in single figures in the betting. She became the Haunui Farm Stud shuttler’s first northern hemisphere winner - and a devastating one at that - when bolting in by six lengths on debut at Keeneland in April.

“Ben McElroy, who is the agent that bought her, he gave her to me to train, and I’m very excited about her, I can tell you that,” Ward said.

Ribchester, who was dominant at the mile, winning at Group 1 level four times at the trip, at three and four years, might not have been pinpointed as a producer of early, dynamite speed, but has seen his progeny get off to a flying start on the track, with three winners who, along with Ruthin, include the Richard Hannon-trained Gisburn who finished 15th in the Coventry Stakes.

At 350,000gns, the filly is the most expensive yearling by Ribchester to be sold at auction and is a half-sister to multiple stakes winner Hit The Bid.

“I think a little bit of her speed is from her family and I think a little bit of that speed is from me,” quipped Ward.

“But she’s a beautiful filly, that’s the reason she cost so much, she was so dear at the auction, but she’s got a wonderful mind and we’re hoping for a really good showing here.”

Although he will saddle the two dominant five furlong winners and acknowledging his all-conquering record at Ascot, Ward is acutely aware of the step up in challenge a trip to Royal Ascot poses.

“I wouldn’t say that the competition that early is as stern as what we’re going to face here at Ascot,” he said.

“A lot of these horses that are Royal Ascot worthy, they’re a little bit more forward and have a little bit more ability than those that they’re running against early on.”

Victory for Ruthin would be the second time in succession a southern hemisphere shuttler, prolific over the mile, will have sired the winner of the Windsor Castle Stakes, following on from the triumph for Tactical, a son of Swettenham Stud’s Toronado, who is owned by the Queen.

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