RUNNING THE JEWELS
Top trainer Carroll has Mighty Heart on verge of Crown — against all odds
Trainer Josie Carroll walked out of a barn on the backstretch at Woodbine Racetrack, took hold of Mighty Heart’s reins and seemed pleasantly surprised: “I never thought he’d behave this well.”
Carroll was smiling. She has the champion thoroughbred behaving more than well.
The one-eyed colt, a 13-1 underdog when their Triple Crown journey began with a win in last month’s Queen’s Plate, is the morning-line favourite to make history in Saturday’s Breeders’ Stakes. And Carroll could become the first female trainer ever to sweep all three legs of Canadian horse racing’s showcase series.
Mighty Heart drew a crowd on this day, a media throng on hand to record the lead-up to the big race.
“He kind of liked that,” Carroll said after the grazing colt popped his head up in reaction to the cameras.
The Hall of Fame trainer sees the attention the Triple Crown chase has garnered and wishes there could be more of that year-round, for a sport that had lost ground even before the pandemic struck.
“We have a great sport and it’s tough (without live crowds), especially in a year when we have so many great things happening,” Carroll said. “The fact that this horse has something special now brings attention to our sport, and it’s wonderful to see.”
Carroll guided Mighty Heart out of obscurity. The Larry Cordes-owned colt lost his left eye in a paddock accident at two weeks old, and never raced as a two-year-old.
Today, he’s one victory away from becoming the first Canadian Triple Crown
winner since Wando in 2003.
“It’s a great name for him,” Carroll said of Mighty Heart. “He’s a little horse that’s overcome. There’s something in racing we call heart. Sometimes a horse with heart beats a horse with talent.”
Now 62, the Scarboroughborn Carroll recalls choosing racing over other equestrian sports as a child because of the thrill of the crowd and speed of the horses.
And as much as she hopes to see the sport return to the spotlight, a day at the racetrack has little to do with glamour: 15hour days, often starting at 4:30 a.m., and endless work in heavy clothes and sturdy footwear that can stand up to the muddy stables and cool, damp weather — which hung around the Woodbine for much of the week before race day.
She remembers cutting out newspaper articles about horse racing and pasting them into a scrapbook in her youth. When it came time to make a decision on university and the course her life would take, she enrolled in equine studies at Humber College rather than a safer choice with more job prospects.
It took courage to make that decision in 1975. There weren’t many female trainers at the time. She says it was her mother who gave her that courage.
“She was the strongest woman I’ve ever known, and she always told me to believe in whatever I wanted to do,” Carroll said.
She has trained three Queen’s Plate winners — Edenwold in 2006, Inglorious in 2011, and now Mighty Heart — and more than 800 winners in all, with $47 million in career earnings. She was elected to the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2019.
At the induction ceremony, Carroll played down the “gender card” and focused on the hard work and dedication that it takes to make it in the industry.
She also said she wouldn’t have been the first female trainer with a Plate win if not for a little racing luck. Four other women — Janet Bedford, Barbara Minshall, Rita Schnitzler, and Catherine Day Phillips — had trained Plate runners-up.
After she graduated from Humber, Carroll’s first assignment was with trainer Sam Dixon, later working with Hall of Fame trainer Mac Benson out of Windfields Farm and at other barns famous in the industry — owned by Roger Attfield, John Tammaro Sr., the Eaton family and Frank Stronach — before going out on her own in 1994.
Her guiding lights: patience and belief.
With Mighty Heart, she told Cordes not to worry after the colt finished well out of the running in his first races.
“Yes, she said to be patient,” the owner said of Carroll’s advice after Mighty Heart finished fourth in February and 10th in March at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans.
“Obviously, I was disappointed, but there was a shining light there. He violently threw his head coming out of the gate in his first race and lost about eight lengths, then he lost eight lengths coming out of the first turn. But in the stretch he made up 16 lengths on the other horses, so there was something there. Josie said to be patient, we’ll figure out what this is.”
Mighty Heart was shipped to Woodbine in March and will start Saturday’s Breeders’ Stakes from the No. 8 post position — ridden by Daisuke Fukumoto — in a 12-horse field.
The 1 1⁄2- mile race will be run over Woodbine’s E.P. Taylor
Turf course. The three legs of the Triple Crown are run on different surfaces: tapeta (sand and rubber fibre), dirt and grass.
Carroll also trains the second choice in the early odds: Belichick, named after New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and starting from the nine hole Saturday, next to Mighty Heart.
There’s little chance of rain in the forecast for race day, which suits Carroll fine. She says wet weather isn’t ideal for Mighty Heart, even after “skipping” through mid-week training on a soggy track.
She sees something special in the colt, and Saturday’s main event could be the crowning achievement.
“It’s exciting, and what makes it exciting is that this horse has a shot,” Carroll said. “This horse has shown himself to be a real contender.”