Ward heads to Mot with chance for an elusive first

West Melton harness racing trainer, Barry Ward usually has a small army around him when it comes to a Banks Peninsula meeting on the grass, and this Sunday afternoon (17 March) is no different with four runners engaged across the twelve-race programme. No mean feat when you consider the training caper is a hobby and he does all the work getting them ready on his own.

All four of his runners on Sunday afternoon are from the same maternal family, one that has provided the lion’s share of Ward’s 140 career training victories dating back to 1987 when he first took out a license.

“I’ve been tinkering with this breed for nearly 40 years after buying Out Of Time (Out To Win) from my employer back then, Clem Scott,” said Ward.

“I did a deal back in the late eighties with Max Bowden who stood Clever Innocence at the time where he took a foal and I took a foal. He got the first foal who was a colt, and I got the next who happened to be Time’s On My Side.”

The daughter of Clever Innocence put Ward’s training career on the map as the winner of ten races in a career that saw her finish a close-up 4th in the 1994 New Zealand Oaks. In each of the next two seasons she was Group One placed behind Lento in back-to-back NZ Standardbred Breeders Stakes, as well as Group Two and Three placed along the way.

Time’s On My Side has proven to be a great brood for Ward as the producer of 10 foals for nine winners and even provided the tail lines for Ward’s maiden Group One success as a trainer when her granddaughter Paradise City took out the 2010 Caduceus Club Fillies Final at Alexandra Park.

42 of the 46 progeny wins by Time’s On My Side’s offspring have come in the pacing gait, with the Bettor’s Delight mare, Free Bird proving to be the outlier.

“She was just angry about the whole pacing caper. She did win a race wearing hopples, but that was because she was determined and wanted to be there, but she was never enjoying it. It was only when I tried converting her to become a GP where she would never gallop, she would only trot that I decided there was possibly a signal being sent. Once she switched, she was such a happier horse.

I was always interested in the breeding side of things, and Time’s On My Side’s dam was out of a Lumber Dream mare (Wee Ann) who was out of a U Scott mare (Forenoon), and her sisters were very good and some of them were double gaited. Forenoon herself was a trotter. It was only when the American blood came through that it turned the pacing switch on with the family, but a lot of them could trot and strangely a lot of them liked to free leg,” he said.

If you are wondering where this story is going, bear with us as it takes us to the debutant in the Ward camp at Motukarara in the maiden trot to kick the day off, with Call Me The Breeze (Majestic Son) who is the first foal from Free Bird. The four-year-old mare has the opportunity to provide Ward with his first trotting success since 2015, and possibly a first of sorts.

“Weirdly, to this day I have never won a trotting race as a trainer with a trotting-bred horse. I won five with a pacing-bred gelding called Lobell Star (Nat Lobell). And I think I won about five with Free Bird. I raced Anna Castleton (Gee Whiz II) late in her career and couldn’t win a trotting race with her before she finished up, but I did breed Casteltonian (Continentalman) who won a 2YO Sires Stakes Final.

“That was when I was planning on going down the trotting path because it looked like the new sires were going to turn the game on it’s head and I still think they are, they have some amazing sires and bloodlines now.

“This trotter I am starting on Sunday has been a nightmare to be honest. I couldn’t get her going and I had been asking Paul Nairn and Matty Williamson for advice and not getting anywhere. She is sort of coming too it now and worth going to the races with, but I’m not getting too carried away.

“I think she is capable of winning a race because she has a decent motor and with good manners, that is usually enough to win a maiden. But where she fits into the speed section, I don’t know. Her mother had phenomenal speed trotting, but I couldn’t tell you whether she will develop that asset,” he said.

As ifs often the case in the maiden trot at ‘The Mot’, Call Me The Breeze will have to navigate a capacity field if she is to bely the confidence (or lack thereof) from her trainer, but in the capable hands of Samantha Ottley, she will be given every opportunity to do so.

“She went nice at the trials last time in, she put one long one in round the last bend and I just had to hold on to her for a few strides. But once she straightened up, she was fine. She’s a bit narrow in the hind quarters and Phil Williamson told me it was important to try and keep her going in a straight line as much as possible to avoid any touching when she trots which can spell the end very quickly.

“I probably need to breed the mare to some of the European blood into her to get that true wide gait,” he quipped.

Ward has a three year old full brother out of Free Bird waiting in the wings and very much like his sister, the son of Majestic Son is a work in progress.

“He is quite a bit behind where she is right now, but he’s forward of where she was at this stage if that makes any sense,” he said.

“He still hasn’t got his head around his gait. He feels strong, but he lacks speed at this stage because he doesn’t know where his feet are. In my pacing experience, I would describe him as a pacer who hasn’t quite learned to flow with his gait yet. We are going through the motions and he tries hard, but he just hasn’t got any speed.”

In the fourth race on the card, ward lines up Mister Blue Sky (Sunshine Beach) with Samantha Ottley taking the reins. It’s easier to catch Covid then is it is to catch the five-year-old gelding in a place dividend bearing, and Ward doesn’t know what to expect from the pacer who took 29 starts to clear maidens.

“He is a mystery. He works like a horse who should win races, and obviously it took him a thousand starts to win a maiden in a way that I didn’t think he was capable of doing where he led, trailed, took the lane and sprinted home. Everyone else that has done that with him, he has switched off at the business end.

“He is a very big horse and overgrown and hard to get a handle on. He is just a horse unfortunately but the ability is there on his day,” he said.

Ward’s winning chances on the programme look most likley to come from his two pacing mares, Times Are Changin (Rock N Roll Heaven) and Hey Tonight (A Rocknroll Dance) in the junior drivers event which is the seventh on the card.

The pair have won a respectable 14 races between them (10 on the grass) and have each won twice on the Motukarara surface, which despite average draws should see them giving punters every sight come Sunday.

“You just have to hope it is run like a true junior drivers race. The nine hole isn’t the worst for Times Are A Changin because she has no early speed and will have to go back anyway. Hopefully it’s a genuinely run race and not a walk and dash home because it just wouldn’t suit her. Seven of her right wins have come on the grass though and there is no denying she will love the surafce.

“Hey Tonight is an enigma and an interestingly bred horse if you look at her pedigree being line bred to the great producer, Rich N Elegant. But she is a ratbag and her sister was a raving lunatic. You can get the gear on her but god help you trying to get it off,” he laughed. If she had the attitude of the other mare, she could win them for fun. But she has a very dubious attitude. Sometimes she can do nothing, and other times she can cop the run from hell in a field from heaven and make them look average,” laughed Ward with one of the early contenders for quote of the year.

Two and a half months into the season, Ward is already over 50% of the way to his personal best training tally with five victories from just 25 starters. The magical figure he needs to eclipse is nine, however the ever humble Ward quickly poured cold water on any notion he is going to rewrite his own record books, and has an interesting theory as to why

“I don’t really look at aspirational targets like personal bests, I just like to race them when I think they are about happy. I usually have my best run over the years in January and February. I don’t know what it is. I train most of them on their own so the Spring is usually pretty useless to me with most of them being mares and cycling. But they end up being pretty fit come the Christmas circuit. I’m not saying I cant get five more, but I don’t have much coming through behind these four to provide any assistance,” he laughed.

For complete Motukarara fields, click here.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink