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King For A Day After a suicidal speed duel laid waste to the pacesetters, Monarchos won the fastest Kentucky Derby since Secretariat's
By: William Nack Issue date: May 14, 2001
Ward was in a box with Monarchos's owner, John Oxley, and the veteran Kentucky trainer was shouting the dizzying splits over Oxley's shoulder, above the din, as the numbers flashed their frantic message on the infield tote board. The white-faced Songandaprayer had charged through the opening quarter a head in front -- "Twenty-two and a fifth!" cried Ward -- and then, after scooting through the clubhouse turn and dusting even the fleet-footed Balto Star, had opened a length-and-a-half lead and become the only horse in the annals of the Derby to break 45 seconds for the first half mile. "Forty-four and four-fifths!" Ward hollered to Oxley. This was exactly what Ward had hoped for. Three of the fastest horses in the field -- Songandaprayer, Millennium Wind and Balto Star -- had broken from the three inside posts, and Ward had figured correctly that their jocks would have to blast them out of the gate to avoid getting swallowed on the rail by outside speed coming over on them. Under the track superintendent's rollers, the racing surface at Churchill Downs had been getting tighter and faster all week, and by Derby Day it was playing like a downhill course. Three track records had fallen in the first four races of the day. "They might as well run [the Derby] on Fourth Street," Todd Pletcher, trainer of Balto Star and Invisible Ink, complained hours before the race.
What happened next was more than another demonstration of a ruinous pace making the race at the 1 1/4-mile Derby: It was a powerful vindication of Ward's unconventional way of bringing Monarchos to Churchill Downs. What's more, it offered the emphatic redemption of a colt who had been dismissed as a serious contender in Louisville. Stung by criticism of his training approach, Ward called out to reporters as he stepped into the winner's circle, "This just goes to prove, as it has time and again, that you don't have to pound on an athlete to get him to give you his best." Only two months earlier, on March 10, Ward had established Monarchos as a solid Derby favorite when the colt won the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park by 4 1/2 lengths. It was a smashing victory, doubly notable because on a surface that favored horses with early speed, Monarchos had come from 11th place to prevail. Over the next five weeks Ward worked the colt only three times -- each in a casual five-furlong drill -- and when he lost the April 14 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct to Congaree by 2 3/4 lengths, critics found fault in the trainer's easy-breezy ways. Ward was unmoved. "The goal is the Kentucky Derby, not the prep races," he said. Ward had also studied the chart and the video of the Wood and concluded that Monarchos had run as well there as he had at Gulfstream. He pointed out that the colt had closed more than a length on Congaree near the end of the 1 1/8-mile race. "When I tore the race down, the animal ran as well in the Wood the last five eighths of a mile as he had in the Florida Derby," Ward said. "Congaree just got a jump on us over a speed-biased racetrack. It set us up perfect for the Derby." Many observers thought that Ward was in denial over the Wood. In the three weeks leading up to the Derby he worked Monarchos only once, a five-furlong breeze in 1:00 2/5 on April 27. Ward had grown up among people whose lives were intertwined with those of horses. His father, trainer John T. Ward Sr., had put him to work walking hots when he was five, and Hall of Fame conditioner Woody Stephens, a family friend, was like an uncle to the boy. Sherrill Ward, the Hall of Famer who trained champions Idun and Forego, was an uncle on John Sr.'s side. The collected wisdom of their horsemanship was passed down to John Jr. like a family heirloom. His grandfather, John S. Ward, had preached to Woody and Sherrill about the proper way to get and keep a horse fit, telling them that it was counterproductive to keep grinding him. "You can only get a glass of water so full," John S. said. "You put more fitness into one and it just spills over the edge. It's wasted. And the wear and tear shortens his career." So, confident that Monarchos was sitting on a big race, Ward ignored the orthodox wisdom that calls for hard races and fast, regular workouts to make a horse battle-tough for the Derby. Instead, the trainer let the colt coast to the race on that one workout and a pair of one-and-a-half-mile gallops. Said Ward after the race, "You look at his race record and you say, This horse has been at the top of his game the last four races. Why do you want to keep pounding on him? Why not back off and let him catch up physically and mentally?" On top of that, on the Wednesday before the Derby, Ward raised a few eyebrows on shedrow when he kept Monarchos inside, confining him to a 45-minute walk in the barn. "They kept making the racetrack harder, and the wear and tear on the horse was increasing," the trainer said. "So I stayed away." No wonder that by post time on Saturday, Monarchos's odds had ballooned to 10-1. Ward could not have scripted the Derby more ideally for the colt. Gary Stevens, on Point Given, thought he was in the perfect spot on the first turn, five lengths off the lead, but he was getting sucked along behind a suicidal pace that, the rider would later think, might have undone his colt. No doubt it did. Only Congaree, lying just three lengths off the lead, would survive the early heat to hit the board, finishing third, a nose behind Invisible Ink. Songandaprayer's jockey, Aaron Gryder, had no chance to slow his colt once he'd started his burn from the gate. "I was going a lot faster than I wanted to go," said Gryder, "and I was in a position I didn't want to be in." To this moment rose Monarchos. Under Jorge Chavez, he slipped inside horses down the backside, then outside others as the field charged the far turn. As the other leaders began gasping for breath, Congaree swept to the lead, hitting the mile mark in a fiery 1:35, and Ward knew that no horse could endure that pace. "Here we go!" he called to Oxley. Off the final turn Monarchos swept around all but Congaree, but he had the leader measured 200 yards out. In the last 10 seconds he ran Congaree down and won by 4 3/4 lengths in 1:59.97, the second-fastest time in Derby history and only three-fifths of a second off Secretariat's 28-year-old track record. Monarchos may never again get so perfect a scenario, but Ward is unconcerned. The man is eager to run his charge in the May 19 Preakness Stakes. Another reason he did not hammer on Monarchos last week, he said, is that he wants a keen colt for Pimlico. "I have a fresh horse going into the Preakness," he said. "I have a horse that's still closing." Whatever happens in Baltimore, Ward's illuminating seminar for Derby trainers on Saturday proved that there is more than one way to get it done. "We've got it made now!" Ward yelled, though Monarchos was running 10th, seven lengths behind. Issue date: May 14, 2001
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