BREEDERS’ CUP WINNING TRAINER DAN WARD GETS FIRST WIN OF MEET AT REMINGTON PARK WITH PIGGY TALES UP IN ALLOWANCE FEATURE

Trainer Dan Ward spent a total of 38 years working as an assistant to two Hall of Famers – the late Bobby Frankel and Jerry Hollendorfer on the West Coast. He won for the first time at Remington Park in his solo career as a conditioner when Piggy Tales Up brought home the bacon in the final race of the night, the featured allowance.

Ward, from San Diego, started his solo career in 2019 and it didn’t take long for him to show the same brilliance that Frankel and Hollendorfer experienced in their careers. Ward ran second in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf with Vasilika at 9-2 odds. She lost to 13-1 longshot Iridessa (IRE) in that big event by only a neck. Vasilika finished her career with a record of 36 starts, 18 wins, five seconds and five thirds for $1,882,595 in earnings.

Ward only raced a couple at Remington Park last year and has had a couple more in here in recent days as he prepares a string for Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., this winter. Piggy Tales Up is getting a head start on the Arkansas meet with a nice sprint home to take the allowance for non-winners of two career races for 2-year-old fillies in race nine. One of Ward’s clients at Oaklawn is Tri-Star Racing, who is co-owner of Piggy Tales Up with Boston Baylor Properties of Hot Springs, Ark.

The Kentucky-bred juvenile filly was sent off as the even-money favorite under jockey Isaac Castillo and had to fight off a pesky Gunite Max (7-5) in a battle to the wire. Piggy Tales Up, by Champion Sprinter Mitole, out of the Dixie Union mare Hopeful Union, prevailed by a head at the finish. Running time for the 5-1/2 furlongs was 1:05.46 over a sealed and sloppy track. The surface condition was forced by a morning thunderstorm.

Piggy Tales Up had won her career debut in virtual wire-to-wire fashion at Monmouth Park in New Jersey on July 27, but she was then given a vacation until Oct. 9 when her connections thought enough of her to enter her in her first stakes race in only her second career start – the $125,000 White Clay Creek Stakes at Delaware Park. She appeared to need that race in her first try at one mile, fading to seventh, beaten 13 lengths. On Monday, she looked more like the winning debut effort on the Jersey Shore.

Piggy Tales Up paid $4 to win and $2.10 to place and show in Remington’s finale. It appears Ward might have a talented young runner to campaign the rest of the winter. Ward makes his main circuit for his string of horses Oaklawn and Monmouth. Ward’s current career stats, from Equibase, has him at 335 starts, 47 wins, 52 seconds and 49 thirds for earnings of $2,528,347.

Piggy Tales Up earned $20,949 from the $35,000 purse and improved her record to three starts with two wins for a bankroll of $52,574. She was bred by Tenlane Farm in Kentucky.

Piggy Tales Up was purchased twice at auction, first for $30,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale in 2023 and she was then pin-hooked for $40,000, selling to Robert Robertson in the Ocala Breeders’ Spring Sale of 2-year-olds in training this April.

Remington Park racing continues Tuesday, Nov. 19 with a nine-race program underway at 2:30pm-Central.

Remington Park has provided more than $363 Million to the State of Oklahoma general education fund since the opening of the casino in 2005. Located at the junction of Interstates 35 & 44, in the heart of the Oklahoma City Adventure District, Remington Park presents simulcast racing daily and non-stop casino gaming. The 2024 Thoroughbred Season continues through Dec. 13 when the $300,000 Springboard Mile tops the final night of the season. The major 2-year-old stakes race of the season, the Springboard awards valuable 2025 Kentucky Derby qualifying points. Must be 18 or older to wager on horse racing or enter the casino gaming floor. Visit remingtonpark.com for more information.

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