'The chances are excellent,' Mighty Heart chasing history

One-eyed wonder Mighty Heart can add an exclamation point to his meteoric rise if he can win the Breeders’ Stakes today at Woodbine to sweep Canada’s Triple Crown.

The 3-year-old has come incredibly far since a paddock accident that occurred when he was only two weeks old forced the removal of his left eye. At the time, the gruesome injury provided a grim reminder to owner and breeder Larry Cordes of all that can go wrong in developing Thoroughbreds.

“Obviously, it was just devastating,” Cordes said. “But he was a nice-looking baby, so what do you do? You just go forward.”

As Mighty Heart moved forward, there was nothing in his early development to suggest he would be on the verge of becoming the first to sweep Canada’s Triple Crown since Wando in 2003. Trainer Josie Carroll can make even greater history as the first woman to condition a Triple Crown winner.

Yet the colt’s emergence is a heartening reminder of how wonderful the experience can be when a horse overcomes great adversity and soars to the head of his class.

“Through the first two legs of the Triple Crown,” Carroll said, “this horse has been a very impressive horse.”

Mighty Heart, a 13-1 longshot, dominated the Sept. 12 Queen’s Plate by seven-and-a-half lengths with a front-running performance at a mile and a quarter on Woodbine’s all-weather Tapeta surface. He came from off the pace to take the Sept. 29 Prince of Wales Stakes by two-and-a-half lengths at a mile and three-sixteenths on dirt at Fort Erie Racetrack.

All of this from a horse that ran fourth in his Feb. 21 debut at Fair Grounds in New Orleans and then 10th in his second start a month later at the same track as he ran erratically while learning to cope with his handicap. He did not break his maiden until July 11 at Woodbine.

The bay son of Dramedy still has a bit of an awkward way of going.

“He cocks his head a little bit when he runs and trains, not substantially, but he does cock his head a little bit,” Carroll said. “It doesn’t seem to bother him. That’s just the way he approaches his world.”

Once Mighty Heart acclimated to racing, his fiery competitive nature showed.

“He doesn’t like to get beat. When we work him without company, he just kind of gallops along. He doesn’t put any effort into it at all,” Cordes said. “As soon as he works with somebody, there is no way he is going to let them get by him. He just won’t do it.”

According to Cordes, he hears from fans across Canada who have been inspired by Mighty Heart. Part of the horse’s appeal is his name, which has an interesting back story.

Kimberly Rutschmann, Cordes’ girlfriend, breeds kittens. A recent litter included a runt that the mother rejected. Rutschmann kept the kitten alive by feeding him for weeks through an eye dropper. She twice revived the kitten by using massage after its heart stopped.

“We called this horse Mighty Heart because of this little cat,” Cordes said.

Can Mighty Heart provide a storybook ending to his tale by adding the Breeders’ Stakes, run at a mile-and-a-half on turf, to his previous successes on different surfaces at different distances?

Cordes is encouraged by knowing that Dramedy handled a mile and a half on turf when he won the 2015 Elkhorn Stakes (G2) at Keeneland.

When Cordes was asked whether Mighty Heart can complete his inspiring Triple Crown run, he replied, “I would say the chances are excellent.”

Carroll, inducted last year into Canada’s Hall of Fame, is more cautious in her optimism.

“I think the horse will run well, but he’s not out there by himself. We’ll see how everybody else runs. It’s a horse race,” she said, keenly aware of all that can go wrong when the starting gate springs open.