‘Cody’s Wish’ earns Horse of the Year honors
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) — Cody’s Wish has earned Thoroughbred racing’s most coveted award: Horse of the Year.
Cody’s Wish, the horse whose namesake was an 18-year-old from Richmond, won the crown at the 53rd annual Eclipse Awards.
“To have Cody’s Wish become Horse of the Year is obviously a proud moment not only for the organization, but also our founder, Sheikh Mohammed. We’ve had some very nice horses in training before who didn’t quite earn the honor, like Bernardini,” said Godolphin USA’s director of bloodstock Michael Banahan told BloodHorse magazine. “So we knew how difficult it is to be Horse of the Year, making it an absolute honor to be involved with an organization that could breed and race a champion like Cody’s Wish.”
Cody’s Wish won four of five 2023 starts, three of them grade 1s, including the Metropolitan Handicap, among many other accolades.
The horse is also the namesake of Cody Dorman, who was born with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome. The Make-A-Wish Foundation brought the pair together.
Dorman died in November 2023.
He unfortunately suffered a medical event on the trip back to Kentucky from California, where he watched Cody’s Wish win his second Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile before he passed.
