A Mighty Day for Woodbine Fans

What a singular coincidence, and literally so, that two of the best horses recently bred in Canada–and that has never been a negligible distinction–should both have only one eye. True, the origins of Hard Not to Love (Hard Spun) and Mighty Heart (Dramedy) could scarcely be more diverse. The 2019 GI La Brea S. winner, who was retired a few weeks ago, graduated from one of the most admired breeding programs in North America, which routinely sends yearlings to Keeneland as coveted as any making a shorter trip from the storied Bluegrass farms. Much like the pioneering E.P. Taylor, indeed, Anderson Farms rebukes any condescending misapprehensions about raising top-class Thoroughbreds in “ice and tundra”. The way Mighty Heart has defied their shared adversity, in contrast, confounds the odds in a fashion–out of the only mare then in his breeder's ownership, by a sire since exported from Oklahoma to Saudi Arabia, and named for the eyedropper-fed runt of a Sphnyx cat litter–that nourishes hope for smaller operations everywhere, from Ontario to Ocala.

After a promising spring south of the border, Canada's Horse of the Year resumes his domestic career Thursday in the most auspicious of contexts. He not only lines up for the GIII Dominion Day S., but does so on a Canada Day when fans are finally restored to the Woodbine stands after a second lockdown trauma that brought the local racing community to its knees. Mighty Heart's return to the scene of his runaway success in the Queen's Plate last September, then, serves as the perfect tonic. Even before the pandemic, after all, the Ontario industry had been through years of crisis following the abrupt loss of slots. For all those who have been striving to rally investment, and all those who have resisted fresh despair during the past year, the big heart of this one-eyed wonder has become an inspiration.

“I find it so funny that he got the name he did, before all this,” says his trainer Josie Carroll. “Because it just sums up this horse. Like in his last race, at the head of the lane, I thought: 'Okay, he's going to run a good race.' But he just dug in. He's just a scrappy little horse.”

That was in the Blame S. at Churchill last month, where Mighty Heart refused to be denied in a three-way photo finish. Having previously made a promising return at Keeneland, he has laid a solid foundation for his second campaign after exploding onto the scene last year, winning the first two legs of the Canadian Triple Crown. Carroll had always planned to get him rolling again in the U.S., but his peregrinations from Florida to Kentucky obtained a melancholy background as the news from the home front became ever more frustrating.

Woodbine finally reopened for business on June 12, albeit behind closed doors, with a jackpot carryover that had been gathering dust ever since Nov. 22. That was when the meet came to a premature end, despite an exemplary record of functioning within COVID protocols in 2020, while a resumption scheduled for Apr. 17 had then been thwarted by government orders that permitted training but not racing. The ensuing limbo became an excruciating new test for the demoralised backside community and its patrons.

Josie Carroll with Mighty Heart | Michael Burns

“You know, I have such a great appreciation for our owners,” says Carroll. “They stuck it out. They had the opportunity to race elsewhere, every other major track was open, but they left their horses here to race. We're all very appreciative, and it makes me so happy to see them coming back to the races, and back to the backside. Some of them haven't even seen their horses for a year and a half, yet they've been hanging in there.”

As Carroll acknowledges, that can represent the entire span of a horse's evolution into a measurable talent. There will certainly have been many a Woodbine project that has run its course in the meantime. And the excitement for many owners, as such, will often be the journey sooner than the destination. “For the majority of owners, half the fun is in the participation,” Carroll confirms. “That's what makes the relationship between the people and the horses.”

But it's a parallel relationship that has been under no less painful strain: the one connecting the morning toil of backstretch workers with the fulfilment available in the afternoons.

“It's been very hard for them, to keep their spirits up,” Carroll says. “Because the fun part, when you have put all that work into your horse, is going over there and seeing them run a big race. That's when you see the excitement on all your people's faces. So just to sit for months and months, without getting the opportunity to run, was very tough on them. And we all know that your basic pay rate, for backside help, is not that strong. They supplement their income with their percentages, from the horses' earnings, so it's a dent in their income too.”

Mighty Heart's Queen's Plate | Michael Burns

Fortunately times of trial will draw the best out in people, too, and fortify a sense of community. “I tell you, everybody in this industry has been great,” Carroll says. “I think we were all shocked when we got shut down at the end of November. Everybody had done such a great job, I think we had two cases out of the thousands of people back here. The same people that were working with these horses in the mornings were also handling them in the afternoons, so it didn't really make a lot of sense. It just felt like we got grouped with a whole lot of other sports and activities, without being looked at individually.

“Since then, everybody has worked so hard together. To get everyone on the backside vaccinated, for instance, so that when we presented to the government we could show them that the majority of people had had their shots. Woodbine did pop-up clinics, for people who live here and don't have a lot of access to transport, so that when Ontario began to open it would have been very hard to deny us, when we could show such a rate of coverage.”

For trainers, of course, the uncertainty created a particular challenge: how do you train up to a target, if the target keeps moving? After all, judging that fever pitch for race day is perhaps the key to their whole profession. But Carroll showed just why she was inducted into the Canadian Hall of Fame in 2019 when priming Boardroom (Commissioner) to win the first graded stakes of the Woodbine calendar, the GIII Whimsical S., after a seven-month absence.

“It's been a very challenging year for all the Woodbine trainers,” she says. “Every other jurisdiction was open. We were aiming for an April start, and getting horses ready for that. But it's very difficult when you haven't got an exact date, and things keep moving, and you're trying to keep horses ready to peak: you don't want to go over the top but you don't want to back off them too much, either.”

Mighty Heart himself was always going to have to regroup, regardless, having disappointed behind barnmate Belichick (Lemon Drop Kid) in the final leg of the Triple Crown before running fourth in the GIII Ontario Derby. Belichick, second that day, will again be in opposition Thursday after an excellent comeback run of his own when beaten a nose in a Churchill allowance.

Michael Burns

“Mighty Heart is not a big horse but he's well put together, very athletic-looking, and he's definitely rounded out into a much more mature shape than he had last year,” Carroll reports. “Mentally, he's always been pretty uncomplicated–for a one-eyed horse! He's got a few little quirks, but if you can deal with those, he will just soldier on.

“I had always intended one start before we got up here, and initially we were going to do that at Gulfstream. But a race didn't come up when he was ready, so we had our one start at Keeneland. The intention then was to come home but when things got delayed, and he was doing so well down there, I just said that now is not the time to backtrack.

“Belichick I sent back down to Kentucky when racing didn't reopen, and he ran a nice race. We're looking at the Niagara S. on the grass [July 25] but he's been 50 days without a run, he needs a race and he's good enough to run in this one.”

Even at 25% of capacity, the return of fans on such a resonant occasion will represent another psychological breakthrough as Woodbine horsefolk seek to put a nightmare year behind them. “We've gotten so used to it being quiet over there!” Carroll says. “But yes, the energy of the fans is part of what makes any sport.”

It feels only fitting, then, for this particular race, on this particular day, to be dignified by the participation–besides three runners trained by another great ambassador for Woodbine, Mark Casse, who this summer receives his postponed induction to the Hall of Fame in Saratoga–of a horse who so captured the hearts of the Canadian horseracing public. Nobody could have predicted what lay ahead after Mighty Heart lost his left eye in a paddock accident when just two weeks old. Carrying the silks of breeder Larry Cordes, he won the Queen's Plate by 7 1/2 lengths in the second-fastest time since the race arrived at the new Woodbine racetrack–the opening of which in 1956 was, of course, one of the many benedictions to the Canadian sport owed to the drive of E.P. Taylor–before following up in the Prince of Wales S. on dirt at Fort Erie.

With so many skilled Canadian horsemen doing their utmost to build on Taylor's legacy, they could have no better model for the underdog spirit than Mighty Heart.

“Our breeding numbers are down but if you look at racing in North America, for the foal crop we have, a lot of very good horses come out of Canada,” Carroll says. “I just hope things pick up and our industry starts to grow, because we breed such nice horses here. I think that's what made me really proud, going down there with Mighty Heart as our Horse of the Year. He showed he could really do it on the North American stage, and I just hope that helped showcase Canadian racing, and the quality of the breeders we have.”

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Two Mighty Hearts Beat As One In Queen’s Plate

Mighty Heart may have had just a maiden win under his belt when he entered the starting gate for Saturday's Queen's Plate at Woodbine, but the one-eyed colt burst from the starting gate on top and ran away from his 13 rivals to win by 7 1/2 lengths. In fact, the 13-1 longshot turned in the second-fastest time in the race's 161-year history, completing 1 1/4 miles over the Toronto, Ontario, track's Tapeta surface in 2:01.98.

Owner Lawrence Cordes couldn't have imagined that his homebred colt would live up to his namesake so perfectly, but the result has been better than any storybook ending crafted in Hollywood.

“You're just not going to believe what I'm about to tell you, but it's all completely true,” Cordes said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “I couldn't make this up if I'd tried.”

The original Mighty Heart weighs in at just 1.76 pounds, significantly less than his equine counterpart; he is a Sphynx cat, and he never should have survived.

The story begins with Cordes' long-time girlfriend, Kimberly Rutschmann, a registered nurse who also breeds Sphynx cats as companion animals. Cordes insists he isn't a “cat person,” but his first Sphynx, named Floyd, convinced the longtime horse and dog lover to reconsider.

Mighty Heart, the cat, belongs to Rutschmann. Seven years ago, he was born the runt in a very large seven-cat litter. His mother quickly rejected the mouse-sized kitten; he weighed less than an ounce when Rutschmann began working to save his life.

For three months she fed the tiny kitten every two hours, around the clock, with an eyedropper. Mighty Heart improved and grew to weigh eight ounces, and Rutschmann began feeding him a special mush with a spoon for two more months until he doubled in size.

Mighty Heart the Sphynx cat (photo courtesy of Angela Perrin)

By now it was late November, and somehow, the door to the cat area blew open while Rustchmann and Cordes were both at work. Cordes came home first and found little Mighty Heart cold and not breathing.

“I took him in my hands and started rubbing him to warm him up, and I called Kimberly,” Cordes remembered. “She ran home, took him and massaged him, then gave him mouth-to-mouth until he started breathing again.”

A month later, the little kitten stopped breathing again in the middle of the night. Rutschmann was able to bring him back once more.

Mighty Heart was small and a bit frail, but very determined to be a “normal” cat. Tragedy struck again when he turned four, however; he suffered a stroke that left him mostly paralyzed for months.

With what must be an infinite capacity for caring and patience, Rutshmann began her regimen of feeding little Mighty Heart three times a day and taking him to the litter box every couple of hours.

“He's using up his nine lives, for sure,” Cordes said. “The vets said if he was going to recover, it would take about three months to see any improvement. At 3 ½ months, he sat up on his own, and Kimberly let out this yell of pure joy that I'll never be able to forget.”

After another year, Mighty Heart was able to walk around with just a slight limp. Another problem arose more recently when his stomach began to expand abnormally. Initially thought to be a tumor, Mighty Heart's issue turned out to be an abscess, which was easily treated by antibiotics.

“Somebody should write a book or make a movie about Kimberly and this cat,” Cordes said. “If you just sat in a chair and watched what goes on between those two, he thinks she's his mother. He didn't know his mother, and she did everything for him. You should see how he's become attached to her, and he's like a baby, he sleeps in her arms… She loves this cat, she says, 'Larry, I don't know what I'd do if we lost him.' It's just like a baby.”

Cordes had just gotten back into breeding racehorses after a 15-year hiatus in 2014, starting with a one-horse broodmare band in Emma's Bullseye. When she gave birth to her third foal in 2017, the colt faced long odds of making it on the racetrack when he lost his left eye in a paddock accident at just two weeks of age.

“So then when I'm looking for a name for this horse, I kept thinking about that cat,” Cordes said. “Here's Mighty Heart, this cat with incredible will to live, living with all these problems for a full life of seven years, and here's this horse with a major handicap as well to deal with. I said, 'You know what? I'm gonna honor that cat by giving his name to this racehorse.'”

Mighty Heart, the horse, never seemed to notice he was any different than the other racehorses. The farm that started him under saddle in Lexington, Ky., had nothing but positive reports during his early training.

“They said to me, 'This horse is something else. One eye or not, he's gonna be a nice horse. He's a very determined horse and he wants to please,'” Cordes remembered. “Well, they were right.”

Mighty Heart didn't race as a 2-year-old, and when he made his first start at 3 this February at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans, La., trainer Josie Carroll told Cordes she wasn't quite sure what to make of his strange behavior.

“On the first turn he threw his head up and went almost to the outside rail, losing about 12 lengths,” said Cordes. “On the next turn he did the same thing. The jockey brought him back in, and in the stretch he was 20 lengths behind when they were half way down the stretch, and he made up 14 lengths in not even half the stretch. We were like, 'Whoa. Imagine if he hadn't lost those 24 lengths on the turns!'”

It took several months to find the issue, because it was well-hidden. Mighty Heart had impacted wolf teeth sitting below the line of his jawbone, right where the bit would lay in his mouth. As soon as those were removed, the colt broke his maiden with ease, besting a field of Queen's Plate-eligible entrants by 5 ½ lengths at Woodbine.

Cordes admits he and Carroll rushed Mighty Heart into his next start, an allowance race where he was collared late and finished third.

Then, Carroll came to Cordes with a unique proposal.

“She said, 'Let me train this horse up to the Plate,'” Cordes said, laughing. “She said, 'Just leave it to me, six weeks, I'll train this horse up to the Queen's Plate. Larry, if you let me do it, you will not be dissatisfied. Let's unveil him at the Queen's Plate.' Well, I just about had a crap in my pants; she had the favorite in the Queen's Plate with Curlin's Voyage, and here she is touting this horse!”

Mighty Heart responded with his giant victory, running the fastest Queen's Plate since 1957.

“The jockey (21-year-old Daisuke Fukumoto) told me, 'I could have had this horse run two seconds faster if we wanted,'” said Cordes. “When he started moving away from the crowd, he just took off like a jackrabbit. When turned for home was on the rail, a horse came up outside him, and the jock said he just cocked his head to the outside and switched into fifth gear and never wanted to stop. He actually ran a mile and a half race, then they had to send an outrider out to pull him up!”

Cordes desperately wanted to bring the feline Mighty Heart with him to Woodbine for the race, but the COVID-19 restrictions meant the cat had to stay home. The pair have met before, however, and will likely do so again before the horse's racing career is over.

Up next, Cordes said he doesn't want to rush the colt back in 17 days to make the Prince of Wales's Stakes, the Canadian Triple Crown's middle jewel, so the third leg, a 1 1/2-mile turf contest in the Breeders' Stakes, will likely be Mighty Heart's next outing.

“I said to the Woodbine CEO that I know pressure's on for me to run him because it's for Canada, but I have to think about the horse's well-being,” said Cordes. “Horse injuries occur from fatigue, not so often from just a misstep, but the misstep that is caused by fatigue. I don't want to do that to him.”

Before Mighty Heart, there was one more horse Cordes named in honor of a Sphynx cat: Floyd, the one that made him fall in love with the breed.

“Floyd (the cat) was my best friend,” Cordes said, his voice wavering with emotion. “It's in my will and all my kids know, his urn will be with me in my coffin when it's my time.”

One-eyed Mighty Heart wins the Queen's Plate by 7 1/2 lengths under Daisuke Fukumoto

The Thoroughbred “In Memory of Floyd”, Mighty Heart's year-younger half-brother, had a touch of second-itis through his first several races, losing by a nose, a nose, a neck, and a head, before finally breaking his maiden in late 2019. The gelding needed a chip removed but developed arthritis after the surgery, so Cordes retired him to be his personal riding horse.

“It's special to have that connection with the horse, after how much Floyd meant to me,” Cordes said. “This horse, a month after he'd been off the track, you could put a child on him. He's so gentle and kind.”

Floyd the horse, and both the equine and feline Mighty Hearts, will have forever homes with Cordes and Rutschmann. The story of the cat who survived and the horse who overcame the odds at this year's Queen's Plate will be something the pair will cherish for the rest of their lives.

“Winning the Queen's Plate, it's something I wish everybody could experience, especially with a horse like him,” Cordes summarized. “It was just an incredible, exciting thing.

“You know, I've been in racing 40 years. I haven't bred a lot, but I really enjoyed the excitement that people were having leading up to the Queen's Plate. You could just hear in their voice the excitement they had about seeing him, and we've had hundreds of phone calls since the race. It was really something.”

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Hernandez Not Worried About Inside Post With One-Eyed Finnick The Fierce

For most trainers, getting the inside-most gate in the Kentucky Derby is like a punch in the gut. It would be easy to think the trainer of a horse missing his right eye — blind to a wall of horses on his outside — would be verklempt. Not Rey Hernandez. Hernandez, who conditions and co-owns Finnick the Fierce, points out the chestnut has finished well from the first post position before, including his third-place performance in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby and his second-place effort (which was later converted to a win via disqualification) in an allowance/optional claimer at Oaklawn. “You know, he's been running really good with the one position,” said Hernandez. “His best races have been from the one position. He might like to be there.”
Hernandez said for as long as he's had Finnick the Fierce in the barn, he has been missing his right eye, which was removed when the son of Dialed In was a weanling. Finnick the Fierce was born with a congenital cataract in that eye, and was sold to veterinarian Dr. Arnaldo Monge for $3,000. After the eye was removed, Monge said the oversized colt was a different animal, leading Monge to suspect the eye had been painful for some time. Monge sold a half interest in the horse to Hernandez, charging the same $3,000 he originally paid. Now, Finnick has raked in $191,290 in earnings and is headed to the Derby. Hernandez said it's a dream come true. “It's amazing,” he said. 'It's a dream we've all got. I'm very excited to have gotten this far.” Hernandez was the one to break Finnick the Fierce as a yearling, so he has only ever known him as a one-eyed horse. He admits it took a little bit of patience as the horse began to train. It also required gelding him early on to reduce misplaced hormonal exuberance that could get him hurt. “It is challenging,” said Hernandez. “In the early stages he was a little more careful with the blind eye because he was trying to see everything with the one good eye. But he's learning how to progress with the one eye. “In the early stage, he'd look around with the good eye everywhere. When he ran in the Kentucky Jockey Club, he was running with the head cocked, trying to see the crowd. He still ran a big race but you could see he was not focused completely.” Hernandez said his partnership with Monge is a good one. For the most part, he's left to manage the horse as he sees fit. Monge told the Louisville Courier-Journal he knew early on the horse was something special–even before he hit the racetrack, thanks to his size and excellent conformation. For Hernandez, it was his performance in the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill that sealed it. “He always showed a lot of talent, and he was very smart, but we didn't know he was that good until he ran first time out,” he said. “I really liked how he ran. That was a five furlong race and he was flying the last 1/16th of a mile. At that point I had a good feeling he was a good horse. “Once he ran second in the Jockey Club, it was pretty much the top 3-year-olds in that race. I was really impressed and running second in the same track they run the Derby, that's pretty good.” Finnick the Fierce beat Kentucky Derby favorite Tiz the Law, who ran third in that race. Tiz the Law has been undefeated since then, meaning Finnick the Fierce and Silver Prospector are the only two 3-year-olds ever to get the better of him, and they've done it on this track. In a Derby year unlike any other, Hernandez is a little relieved Finnick the Fierce will not have to content with the swarms of people normally present on the backstretch or leaning over the rail during the walkover. “The way I look at it, it's a plus,” he said. “It's a plus because I think the less noise for him, noise is a little annoying for him. He's a little concerned by noises, but now that it's going to be quiet I think he'll probably have a better performance.”
Thanks to the National Turfwriters and Broadcasters Association (NTWAB), which has assembled a group of pool reporters providing independent reporting to members unable to be on the Churchill Downs grounds this year due to COVID-19 restrictions.

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