Friends since growing up together as the sons of trainers, Will Walden (left) and Riley Mott make their Breeders’ Cup training debuts the same year. (Jennie Rees Photo)
First Breeders’ Cup was years in the making for KY trainers Robbie Medina, Whit Beckman, Will Walden and Riley Mott
Story by Jennie Rees
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Four Kentucky-based trainers will have their first starters in Friday and Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup World Championships at Del Mar. While Robbie Medina, Whit Beckman, Will Walden and Riley Mott have had their own stables for only a handful of years, they’ve worked most of their lives to reach thoroughbred racing’s biggest global stage.
Here’s a quick look:
Robbie Medina with Praying in F&M Sprint: “To be there, with my name on it, is hard to put into words.”
The son of a veteran barn foreman, 52-year-old Robbie Medina grew up on the backstretches of Chicago’s racetracks: Arlington Park, Hawthorne and Sportsman’s Park. After leaving Chicago at age 18 for New York, Medina worked 25 years as a foreman and then assistant to trainer Shug McGaughey. Medina started his own training career in Kentucky, running a smattering of horses in 2020 and training for Blackwood Stables in 2021 before expanding into his current public stable of 35 horses.
Medina will saddle Praying in the $1 million PNC Bank Filly & Mare Sprint after the 3-year-old filly beat her elders in Keeneland’s Thoroughbred Club of America to earn a fees-paid berth in the Breeders’ Cup. The Grade 2 TCA was the biggest win of Medina’s career to date, and now he’ll try to top that.
“I remember as a kid watching the first Breeders’ Cup in 1984,” Medina said. “I’ve always been enamored with horse racing, but just seeing that. I can recall all seven of the races, watching that first one. I was at Hawthorne with my father. Angel Cordero was my guy. I was almost in tears when Slew o’ Gold didn’t win (the Classic). To the day I die, I’ll think both of those horses (first-place finisher Wild Again and second-place Gate Dancer, who was disqualified to third) should have been disqualified, but that’s for another day.
“I always said to myself, I want to be in one of these races one of these days. I was lucky enough to be with Shug on a couple of them. But to be there, with my name on it, is hard to put into words.”
Medina can’t get Cordero to ride Praying. But he has Cordero’s fellow Hall of Famer and Puerto Rican protégée from way back. That’s John Velazquez, who’ll come into the Breeders’ Cup off tying Pat Day’s record of seven stakes victories at a Keeneland meet.
“He’s hotter than a six-shooter right now,” Medina said.
Medina is pretty warm himself, having won four races out of 17 starts at Keeneland, a victory total surpassed by only six other trainers.
In her last two starts, Praying won Saratoga’s Grade 3 Prioress at 21-1 odds and the TCA at almost 10-1, defeating favored Vahva by a half-length. Medina thinks she has room to improve.
“When fillies get good, they can do things you may not think they’re capable of doing,” Medina said. “If she has a nice flow of the race with some pace, I think we’ve got a pretty good chance.”
Medina is stabled at Keeneland-owned The Thoroughbred Center in Lexington, with 10 stalls at Churchill Downs for the fall meet. With 35 horses, his stable is considered medium-sized compared with today’s mega-stables controlling 100, 200 or even 300 horses.
“Oh my gosh, you’re like a mom-and-pop now,” he said. “When I was a kid in Chicago, Jack Van Berg and Bert Sonnier might have 40 horses, and that was a lot.”
Medina’s own stable has grown the hard way: slowly. But recently he’s picked up new and enthusiastic clients such as Newtown Anner Stud Farm, Praying’s owner. “But you know, sometimes you cherish it more when you build it up on your own,” he said. “I’ve got some new people and I’ve got Newtown Anner. We’re going in the right direction, trending the right way, I believe.”
With Rhetorical and Gordon Pass, Will Walden can do something Elliott never did: train a Breeders’ Cup winner
Will Walden, 34, actually has his first and second Breeders’ Cup horses. He has Keeneland’s Grade 1 Coolmore Turf Mile winner Rhetorical (who is 5-for-6, racing mainly against New York-bred company) in the $2 million FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Mile and Gordon Pass in the $1 million Juvenile Turf. Off a maiden win at Horseshoe Indianapolis, Gordon Pass rallied to be third at 52-1 odds in Keeneland’s Grade 2 Bourbon.
Walden is the son of Elliott Walden, who won more than 1,000 races including a Belmont Stakes in a 20-year career before becoming CEO of WinStar Farm in 2005. Before setting out on his own, Will worked for some of the biggest trainers in the game, including Hall of Famers Todd Pletcher and Bill Mott. He admits that, with his drug and alcohol addictions, he also “burned every bridge I walked over in this business. Nobody was going to give me an opportunity, and I couldn’t blame them.”
But Frank Taylor understood addiction. He met the younger Walden at Lexington’s Shepherds House treatment center, where Taylor gave patients jobs at his family’s Taylor Made Farm. Will was one of the first participants in what was to become Stable Recovery, a residential program Taylor and others founded to help people get back on course with their lives by providing counseling, teaching horsemanship and lining up stable jobs in the horse industry. Taylor put up his own money and solicited donations to buy 10 horses for Walden to train and two other young men to ride and groom.
Walden won his first race in May of 2022 with his fourth starter. Two years later he won his first graded stakes with Pipsy and Minaret Station at Keeneland.
“I wouldn’t have been able to start training, at least when I did, maybe down the road,” the now married father of two said of Taylor’s assist. “I would have had to circle back to the track, started as probably a foreman and worked my way up as an assistant in an operation, put in many years before I’d get the opportunity to train. Frank said he saw something, gave me an opportunity. I started with two guys. I hadn’t trained, the rider hadn’t ridden, and groom hadn’t groomed. We started with 10 horses, and it’s turned into an operation.
“It’s just a testament to them (Taylor and the other Stable Recovery founders), their vision and foresight of helping guys who are trying to help themselves.”
Rhetorical gave Walden his first Grade 1 victory in the Coolmore, coming on the day that Keeneland also recognized Stable Recovery for its contributions. Fittingly, Rhetorical is a son of Taylor Made Farm’s super-sire Not This Time.
“We have a great team of men and women who show up and show out every day so these horses can race on the big days and the small days,” Walden said. “My name is on the program, but without them, if I was the only one to show up at the barn in the morning, no horses would get trained. I wish the entire team could have been there (at Keeneland), but super happy for the ownership group behind the horse, and for the horse as well.
“… Obviously the Breeders’ Cup is the world’s biggest stage, and you want to be there to compete.”
The Coolmore Turf Mile was only Rhetorical’s second stakes, the first being Saratoga’s West Point for New York-breds.
“Once he got to Churchill from New York, all those metrics we look for, judging our stock and how they’re doing, just started going through the roof,” Walden said.
While Rebecca Walden is not as well-known as her husband, Will says his mom has played an equally important role.
“My dad has obviously had a huge impact on my education as far as a trainer goes,” he said. “He’s been a huge mentor. Not really a lot of people know just how big an impact my mom had on me as a horseman. I was riding pony club, we were doing that together when I was 8, 9, 10, 11, through middle school and the early part of high school. We showed horses together, traveled all across the East Coast doing horse shows.
“She instilled that horse care, that love for the horse and passion for the animal and how much detail goes into the caretaking. Todd Boston, our blacksmith, says when she quit, my dad had to hire three people to replace her. And I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.”
Will’s colors for his 60-horse stable spread between Turfway Park and Churchill Downs are beige and brown – the same as his dad’s barn. In fact, the stall-door “webbings,” along with many of the feed tubs, water buckets and tack trunks were Elliott’s.
“They sat in storage for about 25 years,” Will said. “Whoever made them did a heck of a job because they’re in good shape. He saved me thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff.”
A win this weekend for Rhetorical or Gordon Pass will add something to Will’s resume his dad was never able to do: train a Breeders’ Cup winner, though under Elliott’s leadership, WinStar has won multiple Breeders’ Cup races as an owner and a breeder.
Whit Beckman on Regaled in Distaff: “I think she’s that kind of horse.”
D. Whitworth Beckman, a 2000 graduate of Louisville’s St. Xavier High School, had his first Kentucky Derby starter last year with Honor Marie and his second this year with Flying Mohawk. He also had his first Kentucky Oaks starters with stakes-winners Drexel Hill (second at 33-1) and Simply Joking.
Now Beckman makes his Breeders’ Cup debut in the $2 million Longines Distaff with Grade 3 Delaware Handicap winner Regaled, who was purchased for $300,000 out of the Inglis Digital USA May Sale by Legion Bloodstock on behalf of Ribble Farms and Front Page Equestrian.
Beckman grew up in Greater Louisville, the son of Oldham County equine veterinarian David Beckman. Whit started on the track with veteran trainer Walter Bindner and on Upson Downs Farm in Oldham County before getting posts in New York as an assistant trainer to Todd Pletcher, and later Chad Brown, with a stint training in Saudi Arabia and working for Eoin Harty in between. Wanting to stay in Kentucky to be near his young daughter, Beckman went out on his own during the fall of 2021 with just a couple of horses.
Though he worked for trainers who are prominent in the Breeders’ Cup, Beckman said he never went because someone had to oversee the large stable of horses back home. And he didn’t really expect to be in the Breeders’ Cup this year.
“Even when we first got Regaled, it wasn’t like that was our target,” he said. “Our target was just the Delaware Handicap and a few races in between. You don’t really count on it, but when it happens, I’m just grateful to have the support, the owners who have put these types of fillies in my barn. This is the Ribbles’ first Breeders’ Cup. We went to the Derby together with Honor Marie. And Kevin Page, this is like his first year in it, and now he’s going to the Breeders’ Cup. It’s exciting for everybody. I’m just happy to be a part of it.”
A big break came when Legion Bloodstock started sending him horses, including Honor Marie, who in Churchill Downs’ 2023 Kentucky Jockey Club gave Beckman his first graded-stakes victory followed by his first Kentucky Derby starter the next spring. His stable has shown steady growth, including having Turfway Park’s G3 Jeff Ruby runner-up in the Kentucky Derby and two fillies in the Kentucky Oaks this year.
Regaled was particularly appealing because the filly is out of the same mare as Drexel Hill.
“She was just coming up short in a lot of nice spots, Grade 3 stakes, allowances, she showed a lot of quality,” Beckman said of Regaling. “We know what Drexel Hill was, is and can be. We decided, hey, let’s take a shot.”
In her first start with Beckman, the 4-year-old filly was second by a head in Ellis Park’s $200,000 Groupie Doll Stakes. She subsequently was third in Churchill Downs’ Grade 2 Locust Grove before winning the Delaware Handicap in the mud by 6 1/2 lengths.
“It’s a step up, for sure,” Beckman said of the Distaff. “But this filly has stepped up every time. I don’t see any reason why another step up isn’t something she’s ready for. Her (handicapping) numbers were her best yet. If she can improve off that, which gauging her training, I think she’s that kind of horse. A lot of these mares aren’t necessarily their best until they’re 4 or 5. If she can get out there, get the trip — Joe (Ramos), I’ve really got a lot of confidence in that kid — it’s not impossible.”
Riley Mott “living out the dream” with Argos in Juv Turf: “Breeders’ Cup is kind of like my Super Bowl every year”
Riley Mott, the 33-year-old son of Hall of Famer Bill Mott, has had a breakthrough year, winning his first graded stakes with World Beater in the Grade 1 Saratoga Derby and then his second Grade 1 with the 2-year-old Argos, whose victory in Woodbine’s Summer Stakes earned the colt a fees-paid spot in $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. This past Saturday, the stable also won Churchill Downs’ G2 Kentucky Jockey Club to earn 10 qualifying points toward the 2026 Kentucky Derby for Incredibolt.
Oh yes, Riley’s dad also won the Kentucky Derby with Sovereignty, the favorite for Saturday’s $7 million Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic until spiking a temperature that puts his participation in serious doubt.
“It’s been a dream year for myself and our team — and of course, my dad,” Riley Mott said. “Didn’t necessarily have set goals coming into this year. We always want to improve our stock and improve our results from the previous year. Just to have a really productive second half of 2025 has been really great. Just really appreciative of my team and all my clients.
“It means the world. It’s something I’ve been following extremely closely since I was just a boy. Breeders’ Cup is kind of like my Super Bowl every year, as it is to most people in the game. Just to be able to compete at the highest level really means a lot to me and for our team.
“The quality of the horses that you can get your hands on, there are plenty of capable horsemen out there who are always searching for the right type of horse and never get it. Our team was ready for the opportunity when some good ones came through the barn, just really proud how we’ve executed so far.”
In his third full year of training, Bill Mott certainly didn’t have the quality of horses his son now trains. Bill cut his teeth on the South Dakota fair circuit. When he won the Derby this year, the elder Mott said he could never have imagined running any horse at Churchill Downs, let alone having the Derby winner. But by the time Riley was born, Mott’s days of claiming and buying cheap horses were long over. Riley Mott has been around high-quality horses his entire life, including eight years as his dad’s assistant.
Bill’s career took off in Kentucky before he left for New York in 1986 (though he has maintained a smaller division in the commonwealth). Riley did something of the reverse, growing up in Florida and New York but coming to Kentucky to launch his career for what he hopes is the long haul.
“Before I went out on my own, the plan was always to set up shop in Kentucky,” he said. “I stepped back and looked at the big picture and knew Kentucky was going to be here for a very long time as far as the racing industry was concerned. I wanted to get my foot in the door as soon as I could here. I think it’s been very beneficial. There are extremely top horses and outfits on the Kentucky circuit. I think just being here and showing we can compete with everybody else says a lot. I think that helped us get our hands on some good horses.”
Of being in the Breeders’ Cup, Riley Mott said, “I’ve been doing this for a long time, having worked for my dad. We kind of have a blueprint of what to do and how we do it. The main thing is keeping the horse happy… Just super thankful for my team and the ownership for putting good horses in our barn. We’re just really excited and living out our dream.”
Riley Mott grew up with Will Walden while their dads trained on much the same circuit. Except Riley did not get any of his dad’s tack, which is all being used. Riley did make his stable colors similar to Bill’s, green with a white diamond but adding a second interior diamond.
