The Thoroughbred racing world is celebrating the birth of the first foal sired by Cody’s Wish. The stunning colt was born Jan. 6 at Ramiro Salazar’s Phoenix Farm and Racing outside Lexington, Kentucky.
Horse of the Year Cody’s Wish skyrocketed to fame in 2023 with an awe-inspiring racing career that included winning 11 of 16 career starts including the $1 million Dirt Mile (twice) at the Breeder’s Cup.
Part of the stud’s fame came off the racetrack with his personal connection to young Cody Dorman, who was born with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, a rare genetic disorder which confined him to a wheelchair. Dorman, who passed away in 2023, met the future winning racehorse in 2018 when the colt was a five-month-old weanling at Godolphin’s Gainsborough Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. According to Dorman’s family, the foal walked over to Cody’s wheelchair and placed his head in the boy’s lap. A bond was formed, so much so that the weanling’s owners chose to name the racehorse Cody’s Wish.
“Them two just have some type of language they use to communicate with each other,” Kelly Dorman, Cody’s father told the Lexington Herald Leader. “You can’t hear it, but you can see it and you can certainly feel it. It’s pretty amazing.”
A movie about Dorman and Cody’s Wish is currently in the works. “As the story of Cody’s Wish grew, everyone we told about it would say, ‘This will be a movie someday,’” Cody’s father told Deadline. “We’re incredibly grateful to Enliven Content for agreeing to share the remarkable connection between our son Cody and his best friend Cody’s Wish.”
The new colt, who has a striking blaze, was born during a snowstorm, which the Dorman family says is a sign that their son was watching over this foal from the start, because he was such a fan of snow.
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