The Unlikely Story of Barbadian Runner * The Racing Biz

Racing’s unlikely star kept winning, and on Saturday the sport’s most unlikely story for 2025 took another turn. The story gets better and more unexpected with every story.

“We were hoping for second place,” Barbadian Runner owner Scott Groh said after Saturday’s Maryland Million Classic. “Honestly, I’m hoping for second place.”

Naturally. That was what the connections of every horse not named Post Time were hoping for.

But there was Barbadian Runner and Post Time, face to face, halfway through the race. And suddenly Barbadian Runner flashed into the lead, slowly creeping away to win the 40^e Maryland Million Classic by three parts of a length over the 1-9 favorite.

“You knew he was going to be one-two on the quarter pole,” said winning trainer Henry Walters. “But at the eighth pole he had too much determination. I knew he wouldn’t let anyone pass him.”

Barbadian Runner won his fifth stake of 2025, zooming past $730,000 in career earnings.

He was modestly bred – by a $1,000 sire and out of an unraced Northern Afleet mare – and Groh picked him up at auction for a bargain. He pursues low-profile connections with a long history in Maryland. His people keep asking him to do things you wouldn’t expect him to be able to do, and he keeps doing them. He has had an old-fashioned campaign – ten races so far this season – and shows no signs of slowing down.

He is the quintessential Maryland Million story and perhaps the prototypical Maryland horse.

“Everyone would love to have a horse like that,” Walters said. “He surprised me from day one when we bought him. We never dreamed he would be this good. But he has gotten better every time.”

Walters has won six stakes races over the past quarter century. One of those came with Basketball Court in the 2004 Horace at Laurel Park.

The other five all come from Barbadian Runner, all this year. In these five stakes wins, Barbadian Runner has been exactly favored zero times.

Walters thought early on that he had a decent sprinter on his hands. After all, Barbadian Runner’s father, Barbados, achieved his greatest success in the sprint. And the average winning distance of his offspring is just a shade of six furlongs.

But every time Walters has asked for more — a seven-eighths stake, a one-turn mile, a two-turn mile, and now two turns and 1 1/8 miles — Barbadian Runner has delivered.

“You know, it’s not necessarily written in his family tree [to go nine furlongs]but I think he’s already out of line as far as his pedigree goes,” Walters told the Maryland Million.

Barbadian Runner’s big step forward came at Monmouth Park in May. In the off-the-turf Jersey Derby, where he faced only two rivals (although again not the favourite) Barbadian Runner estimated a few lengths off the pace before pulling away to win by more than seven lengths.

“I think he made his biggest jump at the Monmouth race, even though it was a small field,” Walters said. “The way he did it, walking around the field, he won with authority that day. And I think that was the day where, you know, he got better at an accelerated pace.”

He won the $500,000 Robert Hilton Memorial on August 22 in Charles Town as an overlooked 9-1 opportunity, giving him a perfect lineup as a spirited pace battle stripped the starch from the leaders, leaving him picking up the pieces late.

But in Saturday’s Classic, Blue Kingdom set a slow pace in an attempt to steal the race. This time Barbadian Runner finished comfortably in third place, just a few lengths behind regular jockey Forest Boyce.

“It’s really rare to have a horse that looks like this: I feel like you could put him on a leash, you could drag him back to last place,” Boyce told it Daily racing form. “You could do anything with him. He gives you everything he has. He’s just so reliable.”

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Groh, who races as AJ Will Win Stables, is as surprised as anyone. He lived in Pennsyvlania and purchased Barbadian Runner for $5,000 at the 2023 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale in Timonium. Walters trains a half-dozen of his horses along with the rest of the runners at Penn National, he said.

He owned horses in the 1980s under the name breed name from Will Win Stables. With a young family, he left the game for a while before returning in 2019. He returned as a grandfather; granddaughter AJ is now seven.

‘When I named the stable [in 2019]I just put the AJ in front of Will Win,” Groh said.

He credits Walters for the surprising success of Barbadian Runner.

“Just look at the work he’s done,” Groh said of Walters. “I mean, just amazing. What he’s done with this horse? The price tag doesn’t justify it. He does a great job with them. He doesn’t rush anything. He’s in complete control. I don’t get involved at all. I just let him do what he thinks is right.”

Walters tinkered with the Barbadian Runner’s bit and blinders early on to solve a running-in problem. He also tinkered with jockeys: four different riders rode the gelding in his first seven starts.

Since then, he has smartly chosen Boyce. The veteran has ridden Barbadian Runner in 10 of his last 12 starts, and the duo has combined for four stakes victories. Barbadian Runner has now finished first or second in six straight races, all in company with the stakes.

Boyce, who now owns three Maryland Million Classic wins, says she loves Barbadian Runner, and Groh is pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

“He’s actually, when you’re in the paddock and you’re looking, he’s always sizing up all the other horses,” Groh said. “He looks at each horse and when he sees her come in, he just relaxes. It’s fun to watch.”

The accidental star continues to shine brighter. The story keeps getting better.

“I think the first stakes we ran we had a close third, and we only ran the stakes race because the benefits race fell through,” Groh said with a laugh. “I mean, we had a hard time finding races for him, and we finally did that.

“It feels great. I can’t beat it, man.”