Bacio’s Lightning plans prove short-lived

Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Bacio will not travel to Australia for the Group 1 Black Caviar Lightning at Flemington.

Trainer Wesley Ward has abandoned the plan five days after publicly committing to it.

Ward told Thoroughbred Daily News that he and the colt’s owners had weighed the trip’s effect on the three-year-old’s northern hemisphere campaign and its cost, which he said was not sufficiently offset by a travel allowance offered by the Victoria Racing Club.

“I like to give my good sprinters a little downtime in the winter and then build them back up and get them ready for Keeneland or the big races they have for sprinters Derby Week at Churchill. Going to Australia would have prevented us from doing that,” Ward said.

“The Australian representatives were going to give us a travel allowance, but it just wasn’t going to warrant the expense,” he said. “We’d have to bring the team and (jockey) Juan Hernandez over there and it was going to cost a lot.”

Ward named the Lightning as Bacio’s target after the son of Maclean’s Music led all the way to win the Turf Sprint by two lengths at Keeneland on October 31.

Bacio also won the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes at York and the Palace of Holyroodhouse Stakes at Royal Ascot this year.

Bacio will now be aimed at the Group 2 Shakertown Stakes at Keeneland’s spring meeting, which Ward will use as a lead-up to the Group 1 King Charles III Stakes at Royal Ascot.

“He’s only three,” Ward said. “Maybe we can go next year.”