Carrolls and War of Will keep it all in the family

ELMONT, N.Y. – On the morning of Tuesday, May 28, at Keeneland, the Preakness Stakes winner War of Will went out for a gallop ridden by Declan. On Wednesday, it was David who took his turn exercising the colt. And this week in New York, where War of Will has shipped to try and win a second Triple Crown race, the Belmont Stakes, it will be Kim in the saddle for daily training.

Yes, it’s one big happy family taking turns riding one of the best horses of his generation. Kim and David Carroll are married, and Declan is their son. David is a key assistant to trainer Mark Casse, overseeing Casse’s Fair Grounds string during the winter and running a barn at Keeneland most of the rest of the year. Kim Carroll is an exercise rider for the Casse barn in Louisville, where the Carrolls still nest, and Declan, who turns 20 later this month, began his career as a professional jockey last fall.

“Yeah, it’s pretty amazing,” David Carroll said of this family affair.

The Carrolls have been a racing family since before children came into the equation. Traveling to Belmont to exercise-ride War of Will this week is a homecoming for Kim, who grew up on Long Island, riding horses since she was a little kid. Kim, for some reason, eschewed a more traditional career as a technical artist laying out advertising for a life on and around the racetrack. Several decades ago she found work right here at Belmont riding for legendary trainer Mack Miller, and it was in New York that she met David, an Irish expatriate who was galloping and riding work for trainer Shug McGaughey.

“We literally met out on the racetrack,” Kim said.

Their first child that came was a daughter, Aisling (pronounced Ashlynn), followed by Declan. By then, David had gone out on his own as a head trainer, Kim an essential part of the operation.

“I rode until I was about six months pregnant with both of them,” she said.

Don’t pity Aisling for being left out. She’s moved from Louisville to southeastern Pennsylvania and is working – riding horses and such – at famed Olympic equestrian Phillip Dutton’s True Prospect Farm.

“She’s the best rider of us all, and I’m the worst rider of us all, and that’s the truth,” David Carroll said.

David generally has cut back on morning galloping in favor of acting more like a trainer and observing from the ground. But recently, down a gallop boy at Keeneland, he has found himself horsebacking more again, and since the Preakness, the back frequently has been War of Will’s.

War of Will, for the non-rider especially, looks like the kind of horse you’d dream of riding. His dark bay coat gleams over a ripped body. He’s stands tall and strong and perfectly balanced and eats up the dirt with long, hungry strides.

“I got on him for the first time one time in the fall. He came in with a reputation, and when you sit on him, he gives you the feeling of a really, really good horse,” Carroll said. “Horses like that, they just give you that feel, and it’s hard to put it into words, but it’s just something you feel if you’re riding horses all your life. He’s athletic, hits the ground good, and you can feel the power. You just feel like, ‘Wow, I’d like to really let this thing go.’ ”

Still, Carroll, who rode races in Ireland, can’t call War of Will the best he’s ridden. That honor goes to Easy Goer, who won the 1989 Belmont after losing the Derby and Preakness to Sunday Silence. Easy Goer was Carroll’s regular morning mount, as was Seeking the Gold, runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Classic as a 3-year-old of 1988 and second in a Met Mile the next spring.

Kim Carroll reckons Acoma, a Grade 1-winning mare born in 2005 and trained by Carroll, was the best horse she exercised before War of Will, whom she calls William.

“It hasn’t been that long since I’ve ridden him, but I already miss him,” Kim Carroll said. “I started riding him after the Kentucky Derby and rode him all the way up to the Preakness. It was pretty fantastic. The first time I got on him, it’s funny, the feeling you get. Just the way he’s built and the presence he has about him. This guy is a cool dude. When you ride him and realize how intelligent he is, how kind he is, when you actually gallop him and realize what a professional athlete he is, you never want to get off.”

Declan was the first Carroll astride War of Will, working the colt as a 2-year-old last summer at Saratoga before he’d gotten his jockey’s license.

“We didn’t know what kind of horse he was then,” he said. “But they said this horse was special. Mark showed him to everybody. He’d say, ‘You want to see a good horse? Here’s one.’ When you get on him you can feel right away he’s a true racehorse.”

Casse mentored Carroll last summer at Saratoga after Declan had spent time in Ireland with trainer Mick Halford, all part of a plan to fulfill his childhood ambition to become a jockey. Declan, like his sister, rode comprehensively as a kid and became an accomplished rider early. He followed David to the track whenever he could, soaking up racing, and already qualifies as a horseman, to the extent Casse entrusted to him this unusually talented colt before War of Will even had raced.

Declan, who stands five-foot-eight but can tack as little as 110 pounds thanks to diligent body work and diet, breezed War of Will all winter at Fair Grounds, growing in confidence and accomplishment alongside a colt who himself blossomed. Then, in the first race March 9 at Fair Grounds, a little more than four months into an already promising jockey’s career, Declan went down in an ugly fall when a horse, carelessly ridden on the backstretch of a low-level claiming sprint, cut him off and caused his mount to clip heels.

It hasn’t been a decades-long warm fuzzy buzz for this family. There’s a good chance none of these Carrolls would’ve ridden War of Will at all had David’s training business not slumped several years ago. Despite a good reputation and obvious horsemanship, Carroll struggled to attract clients to fill his stalls with useful runners. He and Kim worked hands-on, Kim staying back in Louisville with the kids when David went to Fair Grounds, and they never wanted to operate a satellite string.

“It was tough on us because we really loved what we did,” Kim Carroll said. “The big trainers got bigger and got the better horses, and the middle man, we were just getting kind of average horses. You’re still working as hard as you always have and it’s just not possible anymore.”

There was a significant health scare, too, though Kim, pragmatist and optimist, plays it down as a blip. In the fall of 2010, she was diagnosed with leukemia, spent three months in the hospital getting treatment, and needed further recovery after finally getting discharged. She was back exercise-riding in April 2011.

“I never talked about it. I didn’t want a support group, I wanted to get it done with. The hospital had a little workout room and I used to take my IV drip and run on the treadmill. And I don’t think of it anymore,” she said.

So, Kim had gotten better, and David had made peace functioning as an assistant for Casse, a man he likes and respects, and now, at Fair Grounds, his son was working alongside him as David helped guide his nascent career. David, watching trackside in New Orleans, would study each Declan ride, often texting his son even before he’d returned to the jockeys’ room. But on March 9, the Casse barn had horses in later races and David had gone home to change. He was watching on television when Declan went down.

“Even thinking about it now I get very emotional,” he said. “You know it’s going to happen eventually, but it’s your worst nightmare, and nothing prepares you for it. You just want him to get up and walk.”

Declan got up, but it was a close call. He hit the ground hard, was knocked out, and fractured his T-11 vertebra. Declan has been cleared to ride again and is set to resume his apprenticeship this week at Churchill Downs, while David, 70 miles east, does his thing with the Casse string at Keeneland. Just as they did for the Preakness, father and son will meet up at the Carroll home in Louisville to watch War of Will in the Belmont, while Kim Carroll helps get this fabulous animal into the race, savoring the chance to ride such a beast.

“It’s only been a week, but I can’t wait to see him again,” she said, and at this point William might as well be part of the Carroll family.