Ward Takes Keeneland Spring Meet Opener with Bledsoe

This column highlights the performances of maidens who have made no more than five starts and who either sold for more than $500,000 at public auction, have siblings that are grade/group winners, or have dams that are grade/group winners. BloodHorse research shows maiden winners, in particular, who meet these criteria are more likely to go on to be graded stakes winners.

Keeneland 

Kentucky horseman Wesley Ward, a Keeneland staple year in and year out, unleashed his homebred Bledsoe  to snare the first race of the spring meet season April 7 at the Lexington oval.

Maiden Watch: Bledsoe Wins Keeneland Spring Meet Opener

Bledsoe, a son of Ward's privately-stood stallion Iqbaal . A graded stakes-placed son of Medaglia d'Oro  , Ward has been breeding his own mares to Iqbaal since purchasing the stallion for $70,000 at the 2010 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. Ward calls Iqbaal a "gorgeous, rhinoceros of a horse" whose career was cut short by a cannon bone injury.

A $650,000 purchase by Shadwell as a yearling, Iqbaal has sired an outstanding 29 winners from a limited 36 foals to race.

"I own the stallion and the mare," Ward said after Bledsoe's victory on Friday. "The mare I bought for $4,000 and she made $500,000, so to have one from her win on Opening Day there's nothing better."

Bledsoe's dam, the Congaree mare Shrinking Violet , was scooped by Ward as a weanling for a mere $4,000 at the 2010 Keeneland November Sale. Shrinking Violet proved to be a talented turf sprinter, bagging three stakes wins in a career highlighted by a victory in the 2015 Monrovia Stakes (G2T) at Santa Anita Park. Bledsoe became her third winner from three foals to race.

Favored against a field of 10 other juveniles, Bledose raced just behind the early leaders under Joel Rosario past an opening quarter mile in :23.07 before splitting his rivals and assuming command at the top of the stretch. The bay gelding dashed to the wire, clearing his foes by 1 1/2 lengths at the finish in a final time of :53.21 for the 4 1/2 furlongs on a fast main track.

Since February, Bledsoe had recorded six official workouts for Ward, who expressed that the gelding had "separated himself" both mentally and physically very early on. An annual participant in U.K.'s Royal Ascot meet, Ward indicated a trip overseas would be highly likely for Bledsoe.

"This guy might go over there to a friend of mine Ollie Sangster—he worked for me over here," Ward said. "He's a new trainer over in England. There's a race at Ascot that we're going to look at the first week of May. So I called Ollie and said 'Let's see how he does today' but the mare is all turf and the sire, his progeny, the limited crops that he's had have been grass, so we're looking forward to getting (Bledsoe) over there early and seeing what he can do on the grass."

While Bledsoe climbed to the top of the 2-year-old ladder with his debut win, a number of promising sophomores knocked down maiden scores during Keeneland's boutique two-day opening weekend. One of the most impressive of those maiden victors was China Horse Club's Equivoque .

The 3-year-old son of Good Magic  , initially sold as $325,000 as a yearling at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton New York Saratoga Select Sale, went unraced through his juvenile season before being cast into the Keeneland Horses of Racing Age Sale in November. Dropping the hammer for $240,000 to China Horse Club, the chestnut half brother to Japanese grade 1 winner Lemon Pop  was sent to Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher.

After training at Palm Beach Downs Training Center all winter with Pletcher's southern string, Equivoque lined up as the second choice in his debut last Saturday against maiden special weight company.

Despite exhibiting greenness in the stretch when switching to his right lead late, the colt followed in the hoofprints of his older half brother with an exciting first-out score for his connections. He drew away by 1 1/4 lengths at the end after engaging in a heated stretch battle, clocking 1:23.31 for the seven furlongs.

Lemon Pop, a six-time stakes winner on the dirt in Japan, was most recently a disappointing 10th in the Dubai Golden Shaheen (G1) after soaring to the biggest win of his career in the February Stakes (G1) at Tokyo Racecourse. The 5-year-old son of Lemon Drop Kid  has banked over $2.3 million in 12 starts to date.

Bred in Ontario by Saintsbury Farm, Equivoque notched an impressive 103 Equibase Speed Figure for his debut performance. He is out of the Giant's Causeway mare Unreachable, herself a close relation to the dynamic European stallion Danehill.

In a timely page update for the youngster, Equivoque's 2-year-old full brother, consigned as Hip 1152 by Santa Fe Thoroughbreds, agent, is entered in the upcoming Ocala Breeders' Sale Spring Sale of Two-Year-Olds-in-Training.

*Denotes 2-year-old