Mighty Heart!

[RUFFIAN]

MIGHTY HEART RUNS FOR CANADA TRIPS CROWN

After being struck by adversity almost at birth, one-eyed wonder Mighty Heart seemingly has everything going his way as he bids for a sweep of Canada’s Triple Crown in the Oct. 24 Breeders’ Stakes at Woodbine.

The colt was only two weeks old when his left eye was irreparably damaged in a paddock accident, forcing the eye’s removal. His early efforts on the track for Josie Carroll were not promising as he struggled to get a grasp on his surroundings each morning.

“He’s good now, but initially he did lack a little confidence with it,” said Carroll, who is attempting to become the first woman to train a Triple Crown champion.

Mighty Heart was viewed as more of a curiosity than a contender when he was entered in the Sept. 12 Queen’s Plate, the opening leg of Canada’s Triple Crown. Sent off at 13.25-1 odds, he delighted his backers by leading at every call of the 1 ¼-mile contest. He dominated on the all-weather track, turning back Belichick by 7 1/2 lengths.

The plan all along had been to skip the second leg, the Sept. 29 Prince of Wales Stakes, run at 1 3/16 miles on the dirt at Fort Erie in Ontario, Canada. Cordes began to rethink things after receiving a call from Jennifer Perrin, his granddaughter and an equine massage therapist.

“Papa, you wouldn’t even know this horse ran in a race,” she told him. Carroll agreed that the horse had come out of his unexpected romp incredibly well.

In the Prince of Wales, Mighty Heart showed he could from off the pace for jockey Daisuke Fukumoto. He prevailed by 2 1/2 lengths, positioning himself to become the first Triple Crown winner since Wando in 2003. Seven horses have completed the sweep, as it is now constituted, since 1959.