Only a year ago, Will Walden launched his budding training career out of Winding Oaks Farm in Ocala, Fla. with only a handful of unraced 2-year-olds and an unlikely crew of riders and grooms that had never laid a hand on a horse before. In a whirlwind 12 months, Walden and his stable have transformed themselves into a thriving race barn whose breakout year was capped by Kate's Kingdom's thrilling victory in the Dec. 11 $100,000 My Charmer Stakes at Turfway Park.
"I'd be lying to you if I didn't say it was a big moment," Walden said. "And this win wasn't just for me. There's a lot that goes into our barn that's a lot more than just running horses."
Walden, 32, and members of his team met last year as fellow graduates of the Shephard's House rehabilitation program. All of the graduates were recovering from substance abuse, and when Taylor Made formed the Ready Made partnership, it offered the men a glimmering light at the end of a dark tunnel.
"I couldn't be grateful for the early success this barn has had," Walden, son of grade 1-winning trainer and WinStar magnet Elliot Walden, said. "I'm more happy for the guys than for myself. (This opportunity has) given all of our guys in recovery a new lease on life. They came into this game with absolutely no background in horses whatsoever. For them to come in as complete blank slates and work and grind as hard as they do day in and day out that's what means a lot to me."
Kate’s Kingdom takes down the My Charmer Stakes today at TP! Hell of a ride by @JackGilligan14. Congratulations to all the Connections. So proud of this TEAM who gets after it day in and day out. They’ve started the TP meet 2 for 2 sending 4 winners out of last 5 starters pic.twitter.com/cGlPAibUF0
— Will Walden (@wwaldenracing) December 11, 2022
Things are off to a fast start. Walden has accrued nine wins from his first 38 starts to boast a 24% strike rate. He notched his first winner with Dazzlingdominika in May at Churchill Downs and now Kate's Kingdom, a filly Stephen Screnci secured for $400,000 at a Fasig-Tipton Digital Flash Sale in November, has provided the dark horse team their first-ever stakes win.
Although Walden hadn't seen Kate's Kingdom in the flesh before the purchase, he felt the acquisition was a no-brainer in the end.
"We were established here at Turfway, which is a synthetic track. Kate's Kingdom, you look at her form and she's really blossomed this last seven months and more so as a polytrack specialist," Walden said. "There's a race like the My Charmer every month during the Turfway meet and it totals up to around $500-600,000 in purses."
The partnership of Screnci, Frank Taylor, Deters Company et al. bought Kate's Kingdom with the end goal of re-selling her as broodmare prospect after racing the mare through the winter on her preferred synthetic surface.
A 4-year-old daughter of Animal Kingdom, Kate's Kingdom arrived at Walden's barn as a grade 3 winner, having captured the Ontario Matron Stakes (G3) at Woodbine in her prior start.
"I would've only fallen in love with her more if I laid eyes on her physically," Walden said. "She's built like an NFL linebacker. A big, broad, well-balanced athlete. She knows the game and knows what she's here to do. She goes out in the mornings and does it and then comes back in the afternoon and does the same thing."
Although confident in Kate's Kingdom come race day, Walden admits there was one moment of trepidation when the filly fell back to last position at the 2 1/2-furlong marker. Under shrewd and patient handling from jockey Jack Gilligan, Kate's Kingdom saved all the ground she could for the 1 1/16-mile event, and once angled into daylight during the stretch drive, she exploded down the center of the track for a 3/4-length tally.
The My Charmer triumph also meant that Walden took one step closer to following in his father's indelible legacy.
"That last name he's made has made an impression and impact on this industry in more than just training," Walden said. "He's been extremely successful in whatever he's touched in this game. His training career alone, with cranking out horses like Victory Gallop to upset Real Quiet in the Belmont and Distorted Humor to do what he did on the track and go onto become the prolific sire that he was."
Walden was inspired by his father growing up, which channeled his desire to train his own horses one day.
"I loved being there in the barn with him and watching him do his best and bring horses over and have the success that he did," Walden said. "A lot of his advice and tutelage carries on to today. I call him two or three times a week to just pick his brain about things. He's an awesome horseman but he's an even better teacher. I'm super grateful to have him in my corner both personally and professionally."
While Walden's stable began as a pinhook-to-race business venture, with the operation plucking cost-effective yearlings out of last year's sales ring, the stable has moved away from pinhooking and has become a strictly racing barn.
"We've been lucky enough along this journey over the past six months to get some outside clients and the barn is kind of becoming sustainable on its own," Walden said. "From the start, this pinhooking thing was all we had, we were ride or die on that and we didn't know if we would pick up any new clients.
"All the success or failure was embedded in that partnership. If it didn't succeed or we didn't pick up any new clients I was going to go back to working at Wendy's and these guys were going to go back to the farm at Taylor Made. That was kind of the plan of it."
Walden is a far cry from flipping burgers these days. Once the winter season at Turfway concludes in March, Walden's stable will remain on the purse-rich Kentucky-based circuit and return to Keeneland in the spring.
"God has blessed us so much. We couldn't be more grateful to the guys in the Ready Made partnership," Walden said. "Because we all come from unsavory backgrounds and unsavory pasts it takes a lot for guys with their money in the partnership to trust that these guys taking care of their horses are going to keep their personal lives in check in order to keep their professional lives going. They took that chance on us."
As the new year approaches, Walden is determined that his barn maintains that unsatiable hunger for success both on and off the track. Along with the infinite quest for sobriety is the goal of keeping their name in the win column at whatever level that race may be.
"We're under no illusions that we're going after the Kentucky Derby or the Travers this coming year but if that were to happen I feel like this team and this barn is ready and prepared to take on whatever challenge meets us," Walden said.
