Michael McCarthy was 18, wondering what direction his life might take. The Californian grew up close enough to Santa Anita Park to hear the race calls from home and enjoyed working with horses. He thought a racing career might go somewhere if he could figure out a way to pursue one for real.
Then he watched the 1989 Preakness Stakes.
Sunday Silence defeated Easy Goer by a nose -- a repeat of their Kentucky Derby finish two weeks prior but with more drama. This time, Easy Goer and Pat Day moved early and beat Sunday Silence to the lead leaving the backstretch. Going around his rival and pacesetter Houston, Day squeeze
d Sunday Silence back to third to take control. Or so it seemed. Patrick Valenzuela re-engaged Sunday Silence and made up 2 lengths to pull ahead coming off the turn. Ali and Frazier didn't trade harder punches. In tight on the rail, Easy Goer answered the challenge and took a slim advantage at the eighth pole. Outside, Sunday Silence fought back. In the last yards, Day shifted his reins, and Easy Goer cocked his head to the right as Sunday Silence inched ahead. Neither horse yielded; Sunday Silence prevailed in a two-sizes-too-small photo.
McCarthy saw it all in a friend's living room in California.
"His father was a trainer, and I remember him talking through the race and as he was talking through the race he had mentioned, 'Look at Pat, he's trying to screw Patrick all the way around there,' and sure enough when they pulled up and Charlsie Cantey interviewed Patrick Valenzuela he said verbatim, 'Pat tried screwing me the whole way around there.' I thought it was so surreal that someone sitting there on the couch could tell you what was going on in a race like that. It left an impact on me."
That man on the couch? California stalwart Gary Jones. He trained Hall of Famer Best Pal, won Grade 1 stakes with Turkoman, Kostroma (Ire), Lakeway and Quiet American. The son of another California legend Farrell Jones, Gary won 1,465 races and 102 graded stakes. His trainees earned $52.6 million and put him in racing's Hall of Fame.
And he narrated one of the greatest races of all-time for a teenager. Yeah, that'll make an impression.
McCarthy walked hots at Santa Anita while taking night classes at Cal Poly Pomona, worked for a veterinarian, spent time at a training center in Japan and at the National Stud in England. He parlayed all that and more into jobs with trainers Doug Peterson and Ben Cecil, and in 2002 accepted a position with Todd Pletcher. McCarthy stayed for more than 11 years, hanging up MWM webbings as a trainer for real in 2014.
Ten years and change after that, McCarthy stood in the dusk at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md., after Journalism fought through trouble in the stretch and caught Gosger in the waning moments of the 150th Preakness Stakes-G1 May 17. The last one before a complete teardown and reimagination of the old racetrack first used for racing in 1870, this year's edition didn't quite repeat 1989 but tried its best.
After Goal Oriented and Heart of Honor (GB) acted up a little in the gate, all nine runners broke well on a fast track that was sloppy and sealed 24 hours earlier. From post eight, Clever Again cleared, angled to the rail and led Gosger, Goal Oriented, American Promise, River Thames and Journalism through an opening quarter-mile of :23.19. They stayed that way through a half in :46.66, though Journalism lost a little position to be 5 lengths off the leader.
Umberto Rispoli asked the even-money favorite for more effort, and got a tepid answer. Journalism trailed five foes on the final turn and through 6 furlongs in 1:10.23.
"At that point you think two things -- you have no horse or he is just too relaxed," Rispoli said. "I think the second was the option because as soon as I gave a smack on the shoulder he said, 'OK, I know what I've got to do.' "
Not forward enough to get into the clear outside horses early on the turn, Rispoli stayed inside and saved ground. He advanced to get alongside Goal Oriented -- and into a pocket behind a backing-up Clever Again -- just before the quarter pole. Aboard Goal Oriented, Flavien Prat tried to keep Journalism there, but the son of 2007 Preakness winner Curlin forced himself between horses. Goal Oriented leaned in and got knocked off stride, or got knocked off stride and leaned in (you decide), Clever Again and Jose Ortiz nearly brushed the inside rail and Journalism finally found clear racetrack at the eighth pole.
"Going to the elbow, a little gap was opening and I said, 'It's now or never,' " Rispoli said of his decision to go between horses at the top of the stretch. "It's horse racing, it's a nice battle for the sport. Everybody came out safe. I'm sorry about Jose, he had to check, and I had to give a shout to Flavien and he straightened up his horse right away."
Meanwhile, Gosger took the express lane. From a stalking spot in second, the Stonestreet Lexington Stakes-G3 winner passed Clever Again and built a 5-length lead. Just when he and Luis Saez looked poised to spring a 15-1 upset for trainer Brendan Walsh, Journalism came running like a late-for-dinner Labrador.
"When I looked up, Luis opened up 4 lengths ahead of me," said Rispoli, "and the first time I used the crop on him he switched his lead and, boom, he took off."
From there, only time, distance and willpower mattered. Journalism had enough to get there. Could he get there before Gosger reached the finish line?
"OK, I think I'm going to be late," Rispoli told himself, "but probably on time."
Three lengths down at the 16th pole, a length down with the wire looming, Journalism drew even by the last flower in the PIMLICO plantings along the rail and won by a half-length as Rispoli turned down his crop and hand-rode the last eight strides to complete 13⁄16 miles in 1:55.47. Sandman settled for third, 2¼ lengths behind Gosger, followed by Goal Oriented, Heart of Honor, River Thames, Pay Billy, American Promise and a roughed-up Clever Again.
McCarthy saw his horse run into trouble and thought he'd settle for a minor award two weeks after finishing second to Sovereignty as the Kentucky Derby-G1 favorite.
"It was basically more or less kind of what I thought coming to the 16th pole in the Kentucky Derby when I saw Sovereignty coming to us," the trainer said. "I thought it was just another fantastic effort. A couple things didn't work out well for us Derby Saturday, but this here was a little bit more drastic than just losing some ground at the start and having to deal with off going on a muddy racetrack. This looked a little bit ugly there for a couple of jumps . . . My initial thought was, proud of the horse. Great effort. Just going to come up a little bit short."
Until he didn't.
Owned by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Bridlewood Farm, Don Alberto Stable, Bob LaPenta, Elayne Stables and the Coolmore Stallions team of Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith, Journalism paid $4 to win and struck a blow for guts -- human and equine. Sovereignty bypassed the Preakness, and a chance to become racing's 14th Triple Crown winner, in favor of a five-week timetable to the Belmont Stakes-G1. He wasn't alone, as only Journalism, Sandman (seventh in the Derby) and American Promise (16th) shipped to Baltimore after running in the Derby.
"I just think that this victory symbolizes so much about life," said Aron Wellman of Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners. "It took guts for Michael McCarthy to make this call to come here. It took guts for Umberto Rispoli to get sideswiped and thread the needle and power on through and it took guts from an incredible horse to somehow will his way to victory."
Journalism won for the fifth time in seven starts, the losses a third in his debut going 6 furlongs and the Derby. The only horse to run in each leg of the 2025 Triple Crown, Journalism finished second to Sovereignty -- again -- in the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course June 7. Through the first half of 2025, the Kentucky-bred had put up five wins, with two seconds and a third, in eight starts for earnings of $3,198,880.
Early promise, a partnership, then a pause
Purchased by Eclipse for $825,000 from the Denali Stud consignment at Fasig-Tipton's 2023 select yearling sale at Saratoga, Journalism looked the part then and brought along pedigree as a son of Curlin and the Uncle Mo mare Mopotism. Bred by North Carolina resident Frank Batten, Mopotism won a Grade 2 stakes and placed in four Grade 1 races for Reddam Racing and trainer Doug O'Neill before selling to Don Alberto Corp. for $1.05 million as a broodmare prospect in 2019.
Sent to Tapit in 2020, Mopotism didn't get in foal. She went to Curlin the next year and produced a colt at Don Alberto Farm, the former Vinery just northwest of Lexington, Ky. He grew up fast -- well, he kind of had a head start.
"He weighed 150 pounds, mostly head and ears," said Reed Ringler, Don Alberto's chief operating officer. "He was her first foal so you're thinking they might be a little smaller. You're opening up a package and you don't know what to expect. And this monster came out."
The big colt made everyone on the farm say the same thing: "Holy cow, look at this guy."
He was a big foal, with a big head, big ears and an appetite to match.
"He and his mother and the three siblings are the most hungry horses I've ever seen," said Ringler. "They're starving all the time. They're also all very, very independent. He'd go out with his mother and just terrorize everybody."
The colt was a Saratoga sale candidate from those early days and joined the Denali consignment with high expectations. Eclipse won the bidding battle, and signed for the eighth highest-priced horse of the opening session.
Assessing yearlings is easy when they're 3-year-olds, but Wellman recalled plenty of items in the colt's corner. Sire and dam for starters.
"Eclipse has done well with progeny of Curlin over the years," said Wellman, listing champion Nest and major winners Curalina and Point of Honor for starters. "On the bottom side you had a mare who was very accomplished on the racetrack. Maybe I had a little bit of an edge on the East Coast competition because I knew her very well from watching her run in California. I knew what a tough and quality competitor she was."
Like all yearling shoppers, Eclipse looks at more than a catalog page.
"He's a really well-made horse," Wellman said. "He was light on his feet, he moved very well and thankfully that translated over to his mechanics as a runner. You try to pick up on the idiosyncrasies -- presence, intelligence, quality -- and nothing fazed him. We went back and looked five, six times and no matter what was going on he was as cool as can be."
The morning after the sale, Bridlewood's George Isaacs called and asked about buying part of the colt. Sensing a chance to repeat history, Wellman then reached out to LaPenta -- a partner with Eclipse and Bridlewood on 2017 Belmont Stakes winner Tapwrit. LaPenta was in. Longtime Eclipse partner Norton Herrick, who races as Elayne Stables in honor of his wife, was in from the start, and that was that until Wellman decided to get lunch in downtown Saratoga Springs.
"I was grabbing a bite to eat on Broadway and bumped into Reed Ringler and the Don Alberto contingent, just happenstance that we crossed paths," he said. "We discussed the colt we bought from them the night prior and they expressed interest in retaining an interest. We shook hands on the spot."
And just like that Journalism's breeder and seller, the American arm of the Solari family's Chilean-based Thoroughbred program, was back in as a co-owner. Don Alberto bought Vinery in 2013 and has since put together a large broodmare band and made an impact in the sales ring and racetrack with the likes of champions Arcangelo and Unique Bella among others.
When Journalism won the San Felipe Stakes-G2 in March, major stallion farms made pitches and Coolmore won out to make a long line in the program even longer, though there's more to it.
"It came together organically," said Wellman. "Most aren't going to work out like that, but thankfully this one did, and we were fortunate to ink the deal with Coolmore. We're relieved that he delivered on their faith in him."
Journalism went to Bridlewood in Ocala, Fla., for early lessons. Founded in 1976 by Arthur and Martha Appleton, but owned by John and Leslie Malone since 2013, the 2,200-acre farm stands stallions, foals mares, and operates a training division with a dirt track, a turf track and an uphill synthetic gallop. Graduates include champions Gun Runner and Cody's Wish, Travers winner Catholic Boy, Kentucky Oaks winner Pretty Mischievous and -- yes -- Journalism and Sovereignty.
Journalism joined the McCarthy barn at Santa Anita in late spring and trained well enough to make the trainer contemplate a summer debut.
"He comes off the van, he looks like an $825,000 yearling," said McCarthy of his first impression. "As we started getting a little bit more serious, he started working half-miles and things started coming to him a little faster than your average 2-year-old. He'd work as fast as his company, as slow as his company. We thought there was a chance he could make the races by the end of Del Mar."
As 2-year-olds, expensive or not, often do, Journalism scuttled that plan. After breezing three times in July, he didn't have a timed workout in August and started over in September. The first race came in late October and he finished third, running late, going 6 furlongs. He won his next two -- a 1-mile maiden at Del Mar in November as opposed to August and the Los Alamitos Futurity-G2 in December -- to stamp himself a player among California-based horses looking toward the 2025 classics.
Hitting the pause button in the summer might have helped in the autumn.
"He started to get a little bit racy and just a couple of little baby types of things, so we backed off of him for about five weeks," McCarthy said. "I had said to Aron, 'We'll run.' I didn't think it was at the stage where he'd run and win, but he was just getting ready that fast. The last two weeks, three weeks, he started acting up a little bit, started getting hot coming off the racetrack and what have you. I think he just had some things happen, and we didn't run him until a little bit later."
Big steps, bigger stages
Journalism didn't miss a deadline this year, winning the San Felipe March 1 and, in a sign of things to come, overcoming trouble to win the Santa Anita Derby-G1 April 5. That day, he got shuffled to last in a five-horse field, bumped with Barnes on the far turn and got up in time to catch Baeza in the final stages.
McCarthy went to the Derby with confidence. A 5-furlong breeze at Churchill Downs only solidified the feeling. Clockers got the colt in 1:01.40, but McCarthy timed the furlong after the finish line in :11 and change and said the 1-mile gallop-out took 1:41.
"If the racetrack is as it appears today next Saturday, it will take a Herculean effort to beat him," he told himself. The Derby was six days away. Apparently, so too were a monsoon and a mythological Greek and Roman hero.
"There was one horse all week that had caught my eye, Sovereignty, and he just seemed good every day," McCarthy said. "I saw him every day."
Rain turned the Derby Day track to slop -- something Journalism had never experienced in sunny California. He'd barely seen rain. Bettors made him the 7-2 favorite anyway, ahead of the influencer-influenced Sandman at almost 6-1 and Sovereignty third choice at just shy of 8-1. Tenth early, Journalism took more mud than a catfish for the first quarter-mile, figured it out and swept to the lead while five wide off the turn. A Godolphin homebred trained by Bill Mott, Sovereignty followed Journalism while even wider around the turn. They met with three-sixteenths of a mile to go, and Sovereignty pushed away to win by 1½ lengths.
"If I could do anything over, I'd like to take the first 100 yards back," McCarthy said. "Umberto said, 'Michael, the mud hit him in the face and for about six jumps, he was like, What are you doing to me?' But Umberto was able to wheel him outside, get him into a good spot at the backside and at the half-mile pole, you saw him picking up horses."
Watching from section 317 in the clubhouse, McCarthy thought his horse was running a big race. He figured Journalism had everybody in front of him covered and in the mud and gloom and chaos it wasn't easy to tell much else.
"I looked up at the Jumbotron and I could see, obviously, Journalism doing his thing, coming past the quarter pole," McCarthy said. "At the corner of the Jumbotron, I could see the royal blue silks. Sovereignty. Look, the horse ran second. When you go into a race like that and you have what you believe is rightly the favorite, and he's showing you as a trainer everything you want to see, your expectations are high. To run second, you're disappointed at first. But hey, it's great to run second. It's great. It told us we weren't wrong. I thought the horse would run well. He did."
Sovereignty, who broke his maiden in the Street Sense Stakes-G3 at Churchill in October, ran better.
Two days after the Derby, Godolphin and Mott opted against running in the Preakness to deny the race -- in its last iteration at the Pimlico everyone knows -- a chance to play a role in the Derby winner's pursuit of the Triple Crown. Journalism's team didn't commit either, as McCarthy and Wellman went home to California and the horse stayed at Churchill Downs with groom Rolando Navas and exercise rider Marc Witkowski.
Knee-jerk reactions went every which way, even after the connections announced they intended to run Monday of Preakness week.
"Just because we waited the full week to say we were going to run had nothing to with the race or any other horse," Wellman said. "People said we were running because Sovereignty wasn't. We're horsemen and we're going to wait to make the best decision for our horse. Why would you say you're going to run before you have to?"
McCarthy listened to his people all week, flew back to Churchill, saw Journalism for himself eight days after the Derby and seized on the opportunity to win a classic in Maryland. At Pimlico, after Thursday's Alibi Breakfast -- where he made no alibis while trading barbs with Hall of Famers and Preakness legends Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas -- McCarthy explained the decision-making process.
"My guys at Churchill had been telling me everything was status quo," said McCarthy, whose horse ran three races in seven weeks in 2024. "The horse has been the same way since July of his 2-year-old year. He's eaten up, trained with purpose every day. He's like one of those good horses. They do things just a little bit differently than the average racehorse. He's been like that from the start . . . You never really know how much a race like the Derby has taken out, what's been taken out of them, until Saturday afternoon. But from where I'm standing, I see a horse on his toes here, I see a sparkling feed tub in the morning and I see a horse that's trained nicely over this racetrack the last couple of days. We just have to see if we can do a little better this week."
Journalism took care of that, and then some.
Three weeks after the Preakness, he and Sovereignty met again as part of an eight-runner Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course. Based in Mott's barn at Saratoga since the Kentucky win, Sovereignty prevailed again -- passing Journalism in the stretch and pushing out a 3-length win.
Nobody was disappointed, in anyone.
"Second in the Derby might have been a little bit frustrating, and the second in the Belmont was a little frustrating, but we're all very proud of the accomplishment," said Wellman. "A lot of stress goes along with campaigning a horse like him through that, but the horse never had a bad day. We enjoyed the experience, our families came to all three races, we're so thankful for Journalism for so many reasons. To be able to enjoy the Triple Crown experience amidst all the stress and hype that goes along with it is a blessing that I'll always be grateful to the horse for."
A California kid like McCarthy, Wellman learned racing from his parents Michael and Cory who were owners/breeders -- and had horses with Gary Jones. Wellman worked on the backside as a kid and got to know Hall of Fame jockeys Willie Shoemaker and Eddie Delahoussaye so well they attended his bar mitzvah. Wellman played soccer at Cal Santa Barbara, graduated, got a law degree and worked as an attorney for six years before taking a job with Team Valor International. He got a taste of the Triple Crown with Derby winner Animal Kingdom in 2011 and started Eclipse that year.
In January 2014, Eclipse became one of McCarthy's first clients -- sending Norastone to the new trainer. Undefeated in two starts at Parx Racing before being purchased privately, the California-bred launched McCarthy's training career by finishing 13th (of 14) in the California Cup Oaks at Santa Anita.
"I remember when we hauled in the first couple of horses -- two horses standing behind webbings in some random stalls in the back of Santa Anita's backstretch by Baldwin Avenue wondering what we were going to do with our lives," Wellman said. "True to form, Michael showed up in a crisply dry-cleaned and ironed suit and tie for a Cal-bred race and we set the tone right then. We didn't run any good, but we set the tone."
Three starts, and 11 months, later Norastone won and got claimed for $12,500. A horse such as Journalism seemed a long way off; then again, maybe it didn't. In 2018, McCarthy claimed Ohio (Brz) for Eclipse and won a Grade 1 with him. Speech (2020) and Queen Goddess (2021) followed as Grade 1 winners. For other clients, McCarthy won the 2021 Preakness with Rombauer and saddled City of Light and Ce Ce to Breeders' Cup wins while increasing his statistics from six wins and $213,810 in earnings in 2014 to 78 and $6.7 million in 2024.
"I've known him since our days growing up in California," said Wellman of McCarthy. "He was working for Todd when I was with Team Valor and our friendship melded into a professional relationship. It was obvious that when the time came for him to come home and hang out his own shingle in Southern California, Eclipse was going to support him. We built up our respective businesses together, and it brings me a lot of pride and joy watching him succeed with other owners."
The ride, which has plenty of road to go, with Journalism only brings more to the equation.
"It's as cool as it gets for the both of us, the relationship runs so deep," Wellman said. "Our families have become extremely close. We're raising children together. Mike's daughter Stella is right between Sadie and Jack. To have gone on this journey together has made it that much more special."
Win or lose.
"I don't think there are bigger competitors and intense guys than Michael and I are, but we're able to maintain perspective too."
Gary Jones would be proud.
