The multitude of interviews were over, and Kelly Dorman was still soaking it all in standing in the Belmont Park winner’s circle. Junior Alvarado had just delivered another masterful ride aboard Cody’s Wish, arguably the best horse in training, in winning the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, more commonly known as the Met Mile and an iconic American race.
After a congratulatory kiss from his wife, Kelly, Alvarado removed the two pair of goggles from his helmet and handed them to Dorman.
“One pair for Cody and one pair for you, or your daughter (Kylie),” he said. “I’m so happy to be part of this story. Give him a hug for me.”
Dorman will be happy to give that hug when he gets home to Richmond, Kentucky, where Cody watched the race on TV and, according to his mother, Leslie, enjoyed it very much.
“He’s sitting here laughing right now,” Leslie said. “He loved it.”
It’s a story that the horse racing world has come to love and appreciate and, thanks to a win on the Kentucky Derby undercard and Saturday’s triumph two races before the Belmont Stakes and the accompanying national TV exposure, the rest of America is catching on.
“It was a special, special day,” said Michael Banahan, director of bloodstock for Godolphin USA. “He’s such a special horse. He was so cool, calm and collected in the paddock. He just had his game face on. He is a special, special horse.”
Four “specials” might seem like overkill, until you watch Cody’s Wish run.
Breaking from the rail for the first time in his 13-race career, Cody’s Wish was eighth down the backstretch through a half-mile in :45.86, with longshot Hoist The Gold leading and Slow Down Andy, who ran third behind Cody’s Wish in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, second.
Alvarado knew he needed to get his horse away from the rail and he was expecting to meet some resistance.
“I had to find my way out,” he said. “I know riders are kind of looking at me on the inside. I didn’t want to let them know when I was ready to start tipping out.”
Alvarado started his move on the turn, as he often does, but he still had only one horse beaten. If you blinked, however, you might have missed his rocket-like propulsion, which got him to the lead at the quarter pole. That’s right: eighth after 4 furlongs, first after 6. Wow.
“When I ask him, he doesn’t do it gradually he just turns it on,” Alvarado said. “After the half-mile pole I found my seam and got him to the clear. When I gave him his queue to start turning in on, he took off.”
The final margin was 3 1/4 lengths, with Zandon holding off White Abarrio for second. Cody’s Wish ran the mile in 1:34.36 in winning his sixth straight race and ninth overall. His career earnings improved to $2,328,530.
Godolphin won the Met Mile with Frosted in 2016 and has been trying to win it again since. The Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum-owned operation thought it had a great chance last year with Speaker’s Corner, but Horse of the Year Flightline had something to say about that.
“This means so much to everyone,” Banahan said. “We said to Bill (Mott) last year, ‘We’re going to get a Met Mile for you with Speaker’s Corner,’ but we ran into Flightline. It’s great to come back this year with Cody’s Wish. It’s an unbelievable story and we are so lucky and proud to be part of it.”
After Cody’s Wish won the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile last year, the Met Mile became the target for 2023, or at least the first half of the year. He looked great in winning the Churchill Downs Handicap after a 6-month layoff, but the Met Mile had a better and deeper field. As it turned out, it didn’t matter.
“We’ve been waiting for this day since last fall after the Breeders’ Cup,” Banahan said. “This is
where we wanted to come. I don’t know if there’s a bigger race in America that we’d like to win. It was a super weekend with Pretty Mischievous winning (Friday’s Grade 1 Acorn), and we were all waiting for this horse today.”
The fairytale story of the connection between Cody’s Wish and Cody Dorman, a 17-year-old who was born with a genetic condition (Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome), endures. They met when the horse was a 5-month old weanling and they have been best buddies ever since. Cody the young man has overcome significant challenges in his life; Cody’s Wish deals with having to come from the back of the pack every time he runs.
They are both champions.
“Everyone wants to win the Derby,” Banahan said. “I’d rather win this race. There are a lot of nice races, the Derby, the Travers. You don’t get much better than winning this race.”
And you can’t find a better story.
BELMONT BITS: With Malathaat retired to the breeding shed, Clairiere seems intent on taking over the older dirt female division, and she continued to make the case for an Eclipse Award with another powerful stretch drive to win the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps for the second consecutive year. Joel Rosario timed the drive just right to get past the always hard-trying Search Results in the last few jumps. Search Results looked like a winner late in the stretch but could not hold off the high-flying daughter of Curlin. The Chad Brown trainee has lost a combined five times to Clairiere and Malathaat. … The 2022 Breeders’ Cup Sprint champion Elite Power got his stateside campaign off to a rousing start with an eye-opening win in the Grade 2 True North Stakes. Strobe, a highly thought-of Godolphin homebred took the lead briefly at the quarter pole, but once Irad Ortiz Jr. asked Elite Power, the son of Curlin inhaled him and ran on to a not-as-close-as-it-looks 1 3/4-length victory. Elite Power has now won seven straight, including the Riyadh Dirt Sprint on the Saudi Cup undercard Feb. 25. … Todd Pletcher won two of the first five races on the card, including the Grade 3 Poker Stakes, when Emmanuel upset 2-5 favorite Chez Pierre, coming in off an impressive win in the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile at Keeneland. Emmanuel, cutting back a furlong after running third in the Dinner Party on the Preakness undercard, got up at the wire to catch frontrunner Filo Di Arianna. Chez Pierre could only manage third … Jockey Luan Machado picked up the second graded stakes win of his career, both with Next, who led every step of the 1 1/2-mile Grade 2 Brooklyn Stakes and won by 2 1/4 lengths. … Arabian Lion, a winner on the Preakness undercard at 1 1/16 miles in the Sir Barton Stakes, found the cutback to the 7-furlong Grade 1 Woody Stephens to his liking, as the Bob Baffert trainee closed from fourth to win by 1 3/4 lengths. … The 2022 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Caravel continued beating up on the boys as the 6-year-old mare won the Grade 1 Jaipur from just off the pace. It was the fifth win in a row for the Pennsylvania-bred. … Pletcher’s Up To The Mark showed that his win in the Grade 1 Old Forester Turf Classic at Churchill Downs was no fluke, storming home to win the Grade 1 Manhattan in the race before the Belmont.
