00:00There were two Colts at the 2024 Saratoga sale that trainer Wesley Ward thought he just had to have.
00:07He paid $850,000 for one of them, named him outfielder, and watched him win his debut in a TDN Rising Star-worthy performance.
00:16While most trainers might pick out a race at Saratoga for his second start, Ward thinks a little differently.
00:21Instead, he'll head to the August 24th Group 1 pre-Marnie at Deauville, where he has had a remarkable four starts, one second, and three wins.
00:31He's hoping outfielder could be number four.
00:34He went off a heavily favorite on that day.
00:37I had really, really high expectations.
00:39A little bit of the unknown was the surface, because he hadn't had any breezes on it.
00:43And he broke a little bit slow, and Johnny kind of niggled at him the first few strides out of there, and then off he went.
00:49Trying to come on late, but outfielder's already at the warning track.
00:53Look at this debut.
00:55Outfielder, coasted home, won it by seven on the...
00:59Everything that I really thought that that Colt was, that I'd seen in the morning, and what I'd seen as well when I bought him,
01:06he really pushed through and came through with, you know, it was like a revelation.
01:11So we were really excited for him.
01:13He's a really easygoing Colt to be around.
01:15Kind of cocky if you're around him, you know, like he knows he'd be like a young high school, college athlete that's heading to the pros.
01:23And I'm just excited for this horse.
01:24He's got a wonderful ownership group.
01:27Jason Wirth, you know, is a World Series winning outfielder, and that's how I picked his name, outfielder.
01:33And Kia, who's huge in the game now, he's come in with, spent lots and lots of money to have horses like this and to be a part of his group.
01:44This month we'll do a lot of easy half-mile breezes just to keep him sound, and then as we get closer to the race,
01:50we'll start kind of setting him down a little bit, probably get maybe a five-eighths or two as we get into August,
01:56setting him down with some pretty higher-quality Colts to where that we tighten the screws down a little bit,
02:01and he comes right into the race sound and fit and something that I've done in the past with the horses that I brought over there,
02:08sort of similar training schedule.
02:10He'll go about a week out from the race.
02:12He'll go right into my lucky stall at Deauville that we've been successful in.
02:16We've already asked for it.
02:17Looking really, really, really excited about this.
02:21It's a Group 1 race, and as I said, he's equally as talented on both surfaces.
02:27So to have, if he could win a Group 1 race, that will stamp him as a sire, possible sire,
02:33for his accolades that he'll hopefully keep going on to achieve,
02:35as well as if he goes over to the dirt, which we're real excited to get him there towards the fall of the year.
02:42You're always planning and hoping things come to fruition,
02:45but in horse racing, things can change in a minute.
02:48But right now, everything's really, really good, and we've got big dreams for him.
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