LEXINGTON, Ky. – Cody’s Wish sustained a strong half-mile run to come from last and dispatch Cyberknife at the wire to win the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Keeneland on Saturday after a thrilling stretch battle. Cody’s Wish, a 4-year-old trained by Bill Mott who beat Jackie’s Warrior, one of the top sprinters in the country, in his prep race for the Breeders’ Cup, loitered in last for the first half-mile of the race but resolutely made up ground and drove up to Cyberknife in the stretch. The two latched throats at the eighth pole and drove to the wire. “I knew he was going to get it done at that point,” said Junior Alvarado, the rider of Cody’s Wish, after the race. “I could feel the aggression that he had, the will he had just to win the race.” “The performance was awesome,” said Mott. While it was the stretch run that drew all the cheers and gasps from the crowd, Cody’s Wish never would have been in the race without a tremendous half-mile gallop that started on the backstretch. Racing well behind the early fractions of 22.20 and 45.71 put up by Pipeline, Alvarado finally began urging Cody’s Wish on as the leaders neared the second turn. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match and FREE Formulator PPs! Join DRF Bets. “I didn’t want to rush him,” Alvarado said, about the early stages of the race. “He’s a horse that can get a little rank. I took it little by little. At the 3/8ths pole, I was getting a little excited, even though I knew there was a lot of race left to run.” Cyberknife, a 3-year-old who was making the last start of his career before retiring to stud, was far closer to the pace than Cody’s Wish, and it appeared that Florent Geroux had made a winning move around the turn as Cyberknife seized the lead from the front-runners. But Cody’s Wish was coming hard. Cyberknife lost the battle with a few strides left, Cody’s Wish winning by a head. “Just second best,” Cox said, with a shrug. “He ran great. We’ve got no excuse. Florent gave him a perfect trip, and we just came up a little short, bottom line.” Final time was 1:35.33, good enough for a 106 Beyer Speed Figure. Slow Down Andy, another 3-year-old in the nine-horse field, finished third, 1 3/4 lengths back. Cody’s Wish paid $6.32 to win as the favorite. The $1 exacta with Cyberknife, the second choice, paid $13.47. Cody’s Wish came into the Dirt Mile with six wins in his last seven starts. Of those six wins, five came in races at a flat mile – but all of those races were one-turn miles. At Keeneland, one mile races on the dirt are run around two turns, and the ability of horses to handle either a one-turn mile or a two-turn mile can often vary considerably. Mott acknowledged that he had been harboring significant concerns about the configuration for this year’s Dirt Mile. Cody’s Wish is an enormous bay colt by Curlin, and Mott said the horse has “a massive stride.” “A mile out of a long chute gives him a little more chance to kind of get his legs underneath him,” Mott said. “We were a little bit concerned about the two-turn race, going into the first turn and whether he would get shuffled back, maybe not have the same momentum the first quarter of a mile. But he settled into a beautiful stride when he headed down the backside.” :: BREEDERS’ CUP 2022: See DRF’s special section with top contenders, odds, comments, news, and more for each division Cody’s Wish was bred and is owned by Godolphin, the international racing and breeding operation owned by the Maktoum family of Dubai, and so it’s not certain that Cody’s Wish will return for a 5-year-old campaign. His sire, Curlin, is one of the hottest stallions on the market right now. “I think we'll enjoy today,” said Michael Banahan, a U.S. representative for Godolphin. “It was a fantastic result today. We'll probably sleep on it overnight and figure out what we want to do. And obviously he'll be a very attractive proposition when he does go to the stud barn.” Cody’s Wish didn’t start until the middle of his 3-year-old season, and his career has consisted of 11 races. Mott, seated beside Banahan, referenced the late start and the horse’s popularity around the barn while seeming to lobby for another year. “He’s a horse that is probably just coming into his own these last two [seasons],” Mott said. “He's risen into stakes company and to the Grade 1 level, and he'd be a horse that, for me as a trainer, would be an interesting horse to take to a race like the Met Mile next year.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.