G1 winner Carson's Run was named in honour of Carson Jost, who suffers from the same genetic disorder as Cody Dorman, namesake of Horse of the Year Cody's Wish
• Originally published in August 2024 on Kentucky Downs website. Carson’s Run then finished an excellent second in the Nashville Derby at Kentucky Downs on August 31, beaten 2¼ lengths by British-trained winner Bellum Justum
For Wade Jost and his family watching on television, just seeing Carson’s Run – the colt named for their son Carson – get into the starting gate for a race in July 2023, exceeded their wildest dreams, no matter where he finished.
Owned by West Point Thoroughbreds and Steven Bouchey, Carson’s Run won that day by a neck at Saratoga. Even more impressive, the Christophe Clement-trained Carson’s Run won Woodbine’s G1 Summer Stakes. Most recently, another G1 triumph in the Saratoga Derby gave him a record of four wins and a second in seven starts.
Now Carson’s Run is one of the favorites for Saturday’s $3.1m, G3 DK Horse Nashville Derby at Kentucky Downs – one of the richest races in the world.
“It’s always been meant to be a tribute to Carson,” said Wade Jost, a 1986 US Military Academy graduate along with West Point Thoroughbreds’ founder and president Terry Finley.
“The fact that the horse has been winning is just beyond anything we could hope for. That very first race last year, just seeing his name and them talking about Carson’s Run, that was it. That was all we wanted: to see Carson run. Everything else has been overwhelming.”
Kim and Wade Jost’s son Carson, who turns 32 next month and has the mental capacity of a one-year-old, suffers from Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, possibly tracing to Wade Jost’s exposure to chemicals and burning old fields while serving in the US Army during the Gulf War.
Carson was conceived shortly after Jost’s return to America in the summer of 1991. Jost, who later served additional tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, retired from the Army in 2006 as a Lt. Colonel.
Jost and Finley, who lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky, remained close through the years. While some people were reluctant to broach the subject, Finley unfailingly would ask Jost how Carson was.
Not long after Finley launched West Point Thoroughbreds in 2000, he told Wade they should name a horse for the Josts’ eldest son.
Sporting siblings
Carson’s younger sisters Courtney and Emma and brother Connor were all outstanding athletes in track and field and other sports. Carson, confined to a wheel chair with limited mobility, attended his siblings’ sporting events with his parents.
“Terry brought it up: ‘Should we let him get in the action, so to speak, where the focus can be on him?’” Wade Jost said by phone. “It was the better part of 20 years talking about it. It was at one of our classmate’s funeral in 2023, where we were together and Terry just point-blank said, ‘Hey we’re not getting any younger. Let’s do this for Carson.’
“He said, ‘When I find the right horse, I’m going to give you a call.’ In late March, he called me and goes, ‘I think I’ve found him.’ We’d already had the name picked out.”
If Carson’s Run story sounds familiar, it should.
The biggest story in racing last year was Horse of the Year Cody’s Wish, named for teenager Cody Dorman, also born with Wolf-Hirschhorn, a genetic disorder that delays growth and development.
Strange and wonderful
In the strange and wonderful way that completely independent and parallel universes sometimes intersect, that’s what happened. Two young men living thousands of miles apart, born with the same terrible syndrome, independently had horses named after them that went on to perform on racing’s biggest stages.
Jost, who lives in Gig Harbor, Washington, south of Seattle, is founder and CEO of the data analysis company 640 Acres, which focuses on technology entrepreneurship. The man knows his stats. The chance of these twin stories happening almost concurrently?
“Infinitely rare,” he said. “I mean, yes, you can’t even put a decimal point on that probability. When Cody passed, he was almost 18. I would tell you there are probably a couple hundred at most who make it to adulthood.”
Jost’s family had never heard of Cody Dorman or Cody’s Wish until watching the 2023 Derby telecast, in which Cody’s Wish won the G1 Churchill Downs Stakes on the undercard. Jost said he immediately called Finley to question if they should name West Point’s unraced colt after Carson after all.
“We don’t want to be copying something,” Jost, who became one of the West Point partners in Carson’s Run, recalled saying. “’We don’t want to take away from Cody’s Wish. What a special story that is.’
“Terry kind of chuckled and said, ‘Too late. Cody’s father already called me, and they heard about you guys and want to meet.’”
Kelly Dorman, Cody’s father, said he was ecstatic to learn the backstory behind Carson’s Run.
‘I hope he never loses another race’
“I told Wade, ‘I hope you all and Carson get anything and everything Cody got out of this tenfold,’” he said. “I mean that with all my heart. It tickles me to death that Carson has that horse to look forward to. I’m so happy for him. I hope he never loses another race.”
Kelly Dorman and Wade Jost stayed in touch last summer, agreeing that if both horses made the Breeders’ Cup last November at Santa Anita that they’d have their families on hand to meet in person.
It was the first time Carson and his family were able to watch Carson’s Run in person, only possible logistically because Santa Anita is much closer to the Josts’ home than the East Coast where Carson’s Run had been competing.
On Breeders’ Cup Friday, Carson’s Wish finished ninth in the Juvenile Turf, albeit losing by only 3¾ lengths. But the Josts felt like winners, bringing Carson to see his namesake in person and meeting Cody, his family and Cody’s Wish.
The next day, Cody’s Wish won the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile by a nose, locking up Horse of the Year in his final race before going to stud. Then, stunningly, Cody Dorman died the next afternoon while traveling back to Kentucky with his family.
A book is being written about Cody and Cody’s Wish, and a movie could follow.
Phenomenal story
“It’s such a phenomenal story, such a bitter-sweet sad end,” Wade Jost said. “But we’re so fortunate to have met him in person. It was phenomenal for our family to meet their family and I think vice versa. There’s a really special picture of Carson and Cody, too, that we’ll always cherish.”
Wade Jost, though having to come by himself, will be at Kentucky Downs to watch the late-running Carson’s Run in America’s richest turf race outside the Breeders’ Cup.
“We’re two years into it now and it just floors us every time we watch him run,” he said. “Look at Cody’s Wish and that special story, and then Carson’s Run. I think he knows there’s something that he’s running for, other than the rest of us.”
The Jost family says Carson becomes animated when his namesake is running on television. “He may not understand what’s going on – my wife would tell you that he does – but he does like sitting in front of the TV watching the horse races,” Wade Jost said.
“That’s awesome that Carson has a horse that is good. Now he’s comparable to his siblings. The kids all did well. Here’s Carson saying, ‘Look at me, man. Look at my horse.’”
Finley doesn’t know what triggered his sense that the colt who would become Carson’s Run was the right horse.
Carson’s Run is not fashionably bred. And while $170,000 is not cheap, West Point Thoroughbreds has spent far more to buy horses, such as 2022 Horse of the Year Flightline, for whom West Point paid $1m as a yearling.
“Divine intervention,” Finley said. “I really think there’s something special going on with this situation.
“When you look at Carson’s Run and you look at Cody’s Wish, to think that these two kids from different parts of the country with the exact same condition, who really had no connection, got in on two horses that are multiple Grade 1 winners – which we know is so rare in the horse business – there’s got to be something else at work.
“Something caused me to pick up the phone right after that hammer dropped and said, ‘I have the one.’”
• Jennie Rees is a five-time Eclipse Award-winning writer who spent 32 years covering horse racing for the (Louisville) Courier-Journal and is now a communications and advocacy specialist in the horse industry .In addition to handling communications for the Kentucky HBPA and consulting for the National HBPA, Rees has served as publicity director at Kentucky Downs and assisted in major race coverage at several other tracks, including Horseshoe Indianapolis.
• Visit the Kentucky Downs website and the West Point Thoroughbreds website
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