Racing’s improbable star kept winning, and the sport’s most unlikely 2025 story took another turn Saturday. The tale gets better, and more unexpected, with each one.

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

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

But there were Barbadian Runner and Post Time in mid-stretch, eyeball to eyeball. And suddenly Barbadian Runner was flashing into the lead, inching away to win the 40^th Maryland Million Classic by three parts of a length over the 1-9 favorite.

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

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

He’s modestly bred – by a $1,000 sire and out of an unraced Northern Afleet mare – and Groh picked him up at auction for a song. He toils for low-profile connections with a lengthy Maryland history. His humans keep asking him to do things you wouldn’t expect him to be able to do, and he keeps right on doing them. He’s had an old-school campaign – 10 races so far this season – and shows no signs of slowing down.

He’s the quintessential Maryland Million story and just might be the prototypical Maryland horse.

“Everybody would love to have a horse like this,” Walters said. “He surprised me from day one when we purchased him. We never dreamed he would turn out that good. But he’s gotten better each time.”

Walters has won six stakes races in the last quarter-century. One of those came with Basketball Court in the 2004 Horatius at Laurel Park.

The other five have all come from Barbadian Runner, and all this year. In those five stakes wins, Barbadian Runner has been favored precisely zero times.

Early on Walters figured he had a decent sprinter on his hands. After all, Barbadian Runner’s sire, Barbados, achieved his greatest success sprinting. And the average winning distance of his offspring is just a shade over six furlongs.

But each time Walters asked for more – a stake at seven-eighths, 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 pedigree [to go nine furlongs], but I think he’s already outside the lines as far as his pedigree,” Walters allowed before the Maryland Million.

Barbadian Runner’s big step forward came in May at Monmouth Park. In the off-the-turf Jersey Derby, facing just two rivals – though once again not favored – Barbadian Runner rated a couple of lengths off the pace before powering away to win by over seven lengths.

“The Monmouth race, I think he took his biggest jump, even though it was a short field,” Walters said. “The way he did it, looped around the field, won with the authority that day. And I guess that was the day that, you know, he accelerated getting better.”

He won the $500,000 Robert Hilton Memorial Aug. 22 at Charles Town as an overlooked 9-1 shot, getting a perfect setup, as a spirited pace battle took the starch out of the leaders, allowing him to pick up the pieces late.

But in Saturday’s Classic, Blue Kingdom set a dawdling early pace in an effort to steal the race. This time Barbadian Runner rated comfortably in third, just a couple of lengths back under regular jockey Forest Boyce.

“It really is rare to have a horse that is so like, I feel like you could put him on the lead, you could drag him back to last,” Boyce told the Daily Racing Form. “You could do anything with him. He gives you everything he has. He’s just so reliable.”

---

LISTEN TO THE LATEST OFF TO THE RACES RADIO!

---

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

He owned horses in the 1980s under the nom de course of Will Win Stables. With a young family, he left the game for a time 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 gives credit to Walters for Barbadian Runner’s surprising success.

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

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

Since, he’s astutely settled on Boyce. The veteran has ridden Barbadian Runner in 10 of his last 12 starts, and the duo have registered four stakes wins together. Barbadian Runner has now finished first or second in six straight races, all in stakes company.

Boyce, who now owns three Maryland Million Classic wins, says that 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 watching, he’s always sizing up all the other horses,” Groh said. “He looks at every horse, and when he sees her come in, he just relaxes. It’s fun to watch.”

The accidental star keeps shining brighter. The story keeps getting better.

“I think the first stake that we ran in, we ran a good third, and we only ran the stake race because the allowance race didn’t go,” Groh said with a laugh. “I mean, we were struggling to find races for him, and finally we did.

“It feels awesome. Can’t beat it, man.”