Cody’s Wish (11.28.23)

I’ve never been interested in superstars, which I suspect might be a twenty-first century distrust of the superstar mechanism. We see most of our putative stars through a screen. How can one tell what is hype and what is super power? What is gloss and what is legitimate true shine? What is real and what is, well, fake news?

Meeting one in person is another matter. When I saw the racehorse Cody’s Wish standing in a shaft of sun, I knew I was in the presence of royalty at the peak of its powers, full of youth and strength and beauty. He trailed his backstory like an invisible ermine cape. He’d changed an ill boy’s life, and I felt a stirring in the rapt little crowd watching him. He could change theirs.

It is quite a backstory.

In 2018, the Make-A-Wish organization, which helps fulfill the wishes of children with critical illnesses, received a request from Kentucky. A boy named Cody Dorman, age 12, had a rare genetic disorder. He was unable to walk or speak, experienced frequent seizures, and had had many operations. At birth, his parents had been told he would not survive until his second birthday.

But Cody was beating the odds, and Cody wanted to meet a horse.

The request went to an enormous and prosperous thoroughbred operation called Godolphin, outside Lexington, and its Gainsborough Farm, where the broodmares and foals, the babies, were kept. The farm manager, Danny Mulvihill, remembered, as told to Equus magazine, that he “wanted Dorman to meet a foal but was concerned the young man’s wheelchair might be too scary.  He chose an unnamed son of stallion Curlin…‘he was a nice quiet laid-back foal…It was important from my point of view to see if we could get a foal close to Cody, knowing he was in a wheelchair.” The young colt sniffed around the boy and his chair. Then he laid his head onto Dorman’s lap, and something happened, and the little boy put his hand on the horse. They were connected, in the storied way that horses and humans can be bound together.

The colt was just five months old when that tie was sealed.  Godolphin named him Cody’s Wish. 

Horse racing is a sport full of hope and dreams, aspiration, hard work, trouble, and much failure. As the young horse grew, he showed promise and then the promise of brilliance. As Cody grew, his health deteriorated. There was no bright future.  

In 2020, Cody, then 14 and communicating through a tablet, told his mother that he had done all he could, and was “ready to go.” His parents suggested a reunion with Cody’s Wish, then a strapping two-year-old just ready to start his racing career.

Cody’s father said, in an NBC video, “As soon as the horse came out of the barn, it was like nobody was there but him and Cody.” 

Paul Halloran, in the trade publication This is Horse Racing, told it this way. “They say true friends can go long periods of time without seeing each other and pick up right where they were the last time they were together…the horse walked over to his wheelchair-bound friend and put his head on his lap. Then he lifted his head and let Cody rub his nose.” Readers, I assure you that this is uncommon behavior for a high-spirited young racehorse, now in peak condition at around 1,100 pounds. “It was just like they picked up where they left off.” Around Cody, it was said, Cody’s Wish was docile. The boy followed the horse; it is said that he watched videos of the horse training or walking or racing for hours on end, and that his bedroom at home was filled with all things Cody’s Wish.

The young horse raced and traveled well that year, and come November of 2022, came home to Lexington for what would be his biggest race yet, the Dirt Mile (so-called because it is raced on dirt) at the Breeder’s Cup, the year-end championship that draws horses from all over the world. Horses customarily exercise for a time where they will be racing the big ones, and Keeneland tour guide Mary Murphy was trackside one morning a few days before the Breeder’s Cup, talking with excited fans who watched the hopefuls enter and then pass by at speed. 

It was like a parade of stars, one after another going by, and people were thrilled.  Mary spotted Cody and his family, coming up to the track. They seemed a little uncertain. They hadn’t been to the morning works at historic Keeneland before, so she, welcoming, approached and asked if she could answer any questions. Cody’s Wish was a half-hour late appearing, so they had time to talk at the rail. Cody the boy was alert at first, and then seemed tired. Cody’s Wish appeared and passed them within a few feet, and Mary saw that as soon as he saw the horse, Cody settled right down and seemed to watch him go by. Afterward, when Cody’s Wish was going by again, in the opposite direction, back to the barn, “I could see their connection,” she said. “The horse wasn’t paused or brought over. But I could see the connection between the boy and the horse.” “They are, she added, “on a level that is beyond us.”  

A few days later, Cody’s Wish went off as the favorite, and won. Cody Dorman and his family went to the winner’s circle, with the Godolphin representatives, and the jockey and the horse, draped in  victorious flowers. By then, they were called Team Cody. 

The horse had a good year, with Cody watching from afar. This year, the horse was not favored to win another Breeder’s Cup; two consecutive such victories are uncommon. The race, which would be the horse’s final appearance on any track before retiring to stud, was held at Santa Anita in California.  Cody Dorman, a month shy of his eighteenth birthday, traveled there with his parents and sister. According to writer Halloran, they were brought to the paddock so Cody and Cody could see each other.  The race was a hard one, but Cody’s Wish came all the way from the back of the field to triumph in a photo finish that brought the crowd roaring to its feet. He won by a nose, the horse and jockey covered with flung-up dirt. The horse had gone out on top, just like Cody predicted to his parents the night before.

After the winner’s circle, with its photographers and blankets of flowers, and wild excitement of Team Cody, the horse was taken away and so was Cody Dorman. One day later, on his journey back to Kentucky, the boy “suffered a medical event”, and passed away. 

Along with Dorman’s family, the racing world has mourned, both publicly and privately. Tributes poured in. The boy was buried less than a week after the race, with his family and friends and many of his racetrack family bearing witness. At his funeral, farm manager Mulvihill was one of the pallbearers. The Churchill Downs bugler played the “Call to Post”, and later, “My Old Kentucky Home.”

I’d watched the Cup on television, watched the horse come hard from the back of the field to win, heard the short-form replays of the backstory, seen the boy slumped in the chair in the winner’s circle, and the dirt that covered horse and jockey. And a few days later, I had the opportunity to see the horse up close at Godolphin Farm, shown with the other stallions for horse folk considering who they should breed their mares to. The barns are immaculate, the grounds manicured, the pastures immense. Cody’s Wish came out of the barn like a prince, on a loose lead, as proud and fiery as any fairy tale steed. He was electrifying. Many stallions just barely off the track need watching behaviorally, but this horse seemed settled and almost steady. After an initial regal perusal of the watchers, he lifted his head and looked off against a blue Kentucky sky. Every inch of him was gleaming, from the perfectly formed star on his face right down to his shined hooves. Someone muttered “That’s the best-shouldered horse I’ve ever seen. Plus a pretty head.” An elderly horseman who’d seen many champions come and go stood quietly and said “This horse is not just good-looking.  He’s gorgeous.” His breeding and race history, and new triumph at the Breeder’s Cup were described; many or most of the listeners knew the story of Cody. The staff and grooms were settling Cody’s Wish into his new home. When they went into the stall to pull him out so his racing shoes could be removed, the horse was calm. “Well, I could have led him out on a shoelace!” one fellow said. He made a hugging gesture in the air, and went on. “I thought to myself, I’m going to love this guy.”  

That’s good. The horse’s friend Cody is gone. He’s embarking on a new career. Admiration and attentive handling are assured. Love will be in order.

The first foals from Cody’s Wish will hit the racetrack in 2027. 

Grateful for the many reports on Cody’s story, and for my time in Kentucky. Photo by the author.
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