Trainer John Ward can count them on one hand.

Five. That's the number of races he thinks and hopes will be ideal in 2003 for 3-year-old Sky Mesa, who's coming off a second-place finish to Peace Rules in the Aug. 3 Haskell Invitational.

"He will have his fifth start [of the year] in the Breeders' Cup Classic, if all goes well the rest of the way, " Ward explains from the backside of Saratoga. "That's a good setup, three to five weeks training then a race. It's all-important -- the spacing and timing -- to get to five races where the horse should be ready to peak. Six or seven races they have a tendency to get tired on you. Five, especially with a 3-year-old is a good number."

But right now, Ward is concentrating on number three. Sky Mesa's third start this year will be in the Aug. 23 Travers Stakes at Saratoga. It's the track where he became the leading juvenile last year with a 9 length maiden romp followed by victory in the Hopeful.

"It's not so much that he likes the track," Ward explains, "he's shown he can handle the surface here, which is old as far as surfaces go. It takes a great long stride and balance because of the way the turns are banked, so a horse has to be agile to successfully take them. It's a challenge for many of them to handle the turns at Saratoga."

It was after those Saratoga wins and an October victory at Keeneland in the Lane End Breeders' Futurity that Sky Mesa went to the World Thoroughbred Championships, ready to duel with Vindication for the title of top 2-year-old. But two mornings before the race, Ward stood inside the shedrow at Arlington watching a cold Chicago rain fall, chilled not by the weather, but from the discovery that his talented colt had strained his right front ankle. Sky Mesa was out of the Bessemer Trust Breeders' Cup Juvenile and on the sidelines for the rest of the season. "A long day to say the least," he recalls with a slight grin.

Ward then had to postpone Sky Mesa's campaign toward the Triple Crown series back in March, after he bruised his right front foot following a five-furlong workout at Gulfstream Park. The nagging injury kept him out of action until last month's Dwyer.

"Patience is always part of it," Ward says of training young horses. "You can start thinking about how much long-term planning it will take to get where you want. Back when he broke his maiden, we loosely talked about what type of campaign we would have with him. Things changed, but we've picked up the campaign where we would've -- the Haskell, the Travers. It's been good management by Donna (Ward's wife and co-trainer)."

"If" is the most overused word in all of sports. But if Sky Mesa wins the Travers, goes on to win against older horses in the fall and then proceeds to win the Breeders' Cup Classic -- assuming that along the way he'll beat Funny Cide and Empire Maker -- a 3-year-old championship is possible. But even if that scenario works out, the sophomore title would be as difficult to decipher as an Arnold Schwarzeneggar-Arianna Huffington debate.

"Look at the first race at a mile and a sixteenth, one turn so it's essentially a flat mile," Ward notes of the Dwyer. "First quarter in 23.2, then 22 next quarter and he was four or five [lengths] off. The next quarter was swift and he was right there. Those are pretty severe fractions for a horse coming off a layoff but he regained composure.

"In the Haskell, the first fractions were slow, he ran well, laid off when he might should've picked up some sooner. But he closed well and the rider will have confidence in that ability now."

Ward too has good feelings, and the veteran horseman is showing no signs of feeling any pressure. "He's on the learning curve upward and should grow from his two races, improve two or three lengths for the Travers. If he runs good in the Travers, basically it's a free draw from there because we can adjust that fourth race for him. One good thing, it's late enough to redeem yourself but this is the last bus stop to see if we move on."

Hopefully for Ward, Sky Mesa will be on board when that bus leaves Saratoga.