Story of bond between Kentucky boy, racehorse named for him to be made into a movie

Kelly Dorman still feels a sense of awe when he remembers the first time his son, Cody, met the Thoroughbred that was later named for him.

The horse inched closer to Cody, who used a wheelchair and could not speak, and placed his head in the boy’s lap.

“It still amazes me to this day,” Dorman said.

The horse eventually became a champion named Cody’s Wish. And now, six years after that first meeting, the story of the special bond between the Richmond teen and the 2023 American Horse of the Year is being made into a movie.

Dorman said he hopes that same sense of wonder he felt that day and still feels will be translated onto the big screen.

“My biggest hope for this whole thing,” he said, “is for it to be displayed the way it’s already been written.”

It’s a story Dorman says was “put together by God himself.”

Cody died last year on the way home from cheering Cody’s Wish on to a win in his last race.

The rights to the film have been secured by director Jeff Celentano and producer Warren Ostergard, who worked together on the 2023 Dennis Quaid film “The Hill.” That biopic told the story of Rickey Hill, who became a professional baseball player despite a degenerative spinal disease.

Since the release of “The Hill,” Celentano said he gets approached multiple times a week by people with true stories they want him to make into a movie.

“I get tired of it,” he said in a recent interview with the Herald-Leader. “Everybody’s got a true story.”

So when a woman in a bar told him she had a great true story, Celentano said, “I rolled my eyes.”

But Celentano indulged her, and she began telling the story of Cody Dorman and Cody’s Wish.

“A minute into it, I was crying my eyes out,” he said. “I’m super passionate about this story.”

Casting for the film is scheduled to begin in the next few months, and Celentano said the movie might be ready for release in 2026.

Celentano said his goal is to shoot much of the film in Central Kentucky, and he hopes to begin production next summer or fall.

A boy and a horse

Cody was born in 2005 with a rare chromosomal disorder called Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome , which can cause various medical problems.

“He was (in a) wheelchair, but his mind was crisp and clear,” Kelly Dorman said. “He was funny. He was witty.”

He was into fishing, like his dad.

When the Make-A-Wish Foundation offered to grant a wish, Dorman said Cody chose to go to the Bass Pro Shops headquarters in Springfield, Mo., and meet Bass Fishing Hall of Famer and television personality Mark Zona .

Cody invited his friends at Lexington’s Backwater Outfitters to come along, and they met up with Zona and toured the Wonders Of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium together.

It was through the annual Make-A-Wish Day at Keeneland in 2018 that his story with the foal began.

Dorman said the family attended the event for the first time that year, and a race was dedicated to each child in the Make-A-Wish program who was there that day.

As part of that VIP experience, Cody got to tour a sponsoring horse farm, and he was paired with Godolphin Racing and Gainesborough Farm in Versailles.

Dorman said Farm Manager Danny Mulvihill showed them around the farm, and “they treated us just like family.”

“Cody was the first child that they had sponsored that was in a wheelchair,” Dorman said, and no one knew how the horses would react.

“We kept our distance,” he said, as one by one, mares and foals were brought out to meet Cody.

Then came the mare Dance Card and her unnamed foal sired by the two-time American Horse of the Year Curlin.

“It was almost instantly,” Dorman recalled in a recent interview. “You could tell something was different. ...He was really interested in Cody.”

The foal slowly moved closer and closer, sniffed Cody, and then put his head in the child’s lap.

“I had never seen anything like that,” Dorman said. “We just all took in the moment, and it was special.”

But they didn’t anticipate how many similar moments were to come.

As Mulvihill led the foal back to his stall, Dorman recalls saying, “If that horse right there has half the heart Cody has, he’s going to be something special.”

The farm ended up naming the foal Cody’s Wish. He was something special.

The next time Cody and his namesake met, Cody’s Wish was a much larger horse towering over the boy, but he still remembered Cody.

Dorman said those who worked with Cody’s Wish told them the horse could sometimes be “a locomotive to deal with.” But when he was with Cody, he was “like a butterfly.”

“He would stand over Cody and not flinch a muscle,” he said.

When the two met with media in attendance before the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland in 2022, Dorman said, “It felt like time stood still” as the two looked at each other, nose to nose.

“They were speaking to each other,” he said. “Cody’s Wish blinked and leaned toward Cody and rubbed his nose up and down Cody’s cheek. I fell apart then.”

NBC Sports produced a segment on Cody and Cody’s Wish in 2022 and asked Cody why he felt like they had such a special connection.

Using his assisted communication device, Cody responded: “Because he found me, and he hasn’t forgotten me. He has always looked for me, and we have the same heart and drive. We never give up.”

Cody’s Wish went on to win the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile that year.

Cody was cheering for him at every turn.

“He never had the opportunity to play sports,” Dorman said of Cody. “That horse was given the legs that he didn’t have.”

On Nov. 4, Cody and Cody’s Wish met for the last time at Santa Anita Park, where Cody’s Wish ran his last race, the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.

Once again, Dorman said, the horse and the boy connected.

And Cody’s Wish won the race for the second year in a row.

Cody died unexpectedly on the plane ride back to Kentucky after the race, just over a month before his 18th birthday.

“Cody suffered a medical event on a flight from Los Angeles and died shortly after landing in Atlanta,” his obituary stated.

“It’s kind of a weird feeling when your heart’s full and empty at the same time,” his father said.

The movie

Celentano and Ostergard will produce “Cody’s Wish” through their newly-formed production company, Enliven Content, which will focus on “true, inspiring, and uplifting stories” for film and television, according to a news release.

“The success of ‘The Hill’ showed us how millions of people are yearning for films the whole family can enjoy,” Ostergard said in the release. “Enliven Content was founded to bring true, heartfelt stories to life, and we’re honored to have ‘Cody’s Wish’ as our first original movie. This film will touch hearts around the world.”

The filmmakers said Mark Ciardi , of “The Rookie” and “Secretariat,” will also produce the film.

Sports coordinator Mark Robert Ellis , who has worked on numerous films, including “The Longest Yard” and “The Replacements,” is on board as well, Celentano said.

Jake Crane, who co-wrote the screenplay for “Devotion,” a 2022 war drama that is based on a true story, has been tapped as writer for the story of Cody’s Wish.

Celentano said he’d never considered Kentucky for filming before Cody’s Wish came along, but he hopes to now.

“We know Kentucky has a tax incentive, which is super important,” he said. “The fabric of the story was born here, and I want to bring that to the film. ...This place is beautiful.”

Dorman said Celentano and Ostergard were not the first filmmakers to approach his family about making a movie about Cody and Cody’s Wish.

But after having a child who went through 40 to 50 surgeries in his short lifetime, “I learned real quick to trust your gut feeling.”

“It had to be a gut feeling of who the right people would be,” he said.

Dorman said he feels good about the process of working with the filmmakers.

“They’re very adamant about keeping this thing as authentic as absolutely possible,” he said.

He said a book about Cody’s life is also in the works.

As for Cody’s Wish, he’s standing at stud at Jonabell Farm and will become a dad for the first time next year.

“He still remembers us,” Dorman said. “He really took to Kylie,” — Cody’s little sister, who has recently started riding lessons.

Dorman has begun keeping a notebook of “just little things” about his son.

He said Cody loved school and math in particular.

Dorman recalled one incident in particular, when Cody became curious about coal, and his teacher with the Madison County Public Schools’ homebound program planned lessons for him on the topic.

After explaining how coal was mined and processed, she mentioned that it was not a renewable resource. Once it was used up, there would be no more of it.

She asked Cody, “Can you think of another resource that’s like that?”

“He got on his tablet, and he typed out, ‘life,’” Dorman said.

He said Cody’s outlook on life “keeps putting me in my place.”

“He never worried about himself,” he said. “It was never about him. He just had a gift.”

‘Pure love that they had’

On Oct. 9, Celentano and others involved with the film were meeting with the Dormans.

The following day, they all planned to attend Make-A-Wish Day at Keeneland .

Cody’s mother, Leslie, said it would be hard being at the track without Cody.

“He’s never not been at Make-A-Wish Day,” she said.

But she said Cody was committed to raising money to grant more children their wishes.

“It’s hard, but that’s what he wants us to do,” she said.

After Cody’s passing, Kelly Dorman said, “We didn’t have the TV on for a few weeks.”

He said the family “just kind of tuned out and absorbed the blow.”

So he said he was surprised to learn from a Make-A-Wish representative how much attention Cody’s story had gotten.

“The news of them is still growing,” he said. “It’s traveled all around the world.”

He said “the pure love that they had for each other ... crossed over different cultures. It crossed over different religions. It crossed over different countries.”

Leslie Dorman said of the movie, “Cody would want this.”

“Hopefully, it can change somebody else’s life like it’s changed ours,” she said.

And Kelly Dorman said the story of Cody and Cody’s Wish has not ended yet.

“I think, in a lot of ways, those two are just getting started,” he said.