Breana Carsey might only be 11 years old, but for her entire life, she’s had one dream. Breana has always wanted a baby horse that she could raise to be a racing champion. After five years of saving up, her father, Brian, got her an Ohio standardbred foal in 2013. She named him MJB Got Faith after her family’s initials and the faith she had him. “I really loved him,” Breana says.
Although, her dad wasn’t nearly as taken. MJB was a runt from poor breeding stock, Brian didn’t think he would ever be a racehorse and wanted to sell him. “She’s like, there’s no price daddy. So I’m talking to my wife and it’s like, we really got ourselves in a mess here. And I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this,” Brian said. “So we take him to the races. This horse that I thought we should have gotten rid of already.”
“He didn’t believe in him,” Breana added. MJB was so slow that he barely qualified to compete in the race, but then on the big day, MJB won. Then he won again and again. Horses are resilient creatures who can surprise you; just ask Flora, a rescue horse who survived a lifetime of tragedy only to thrive. Eventually, MJB qualified for the state championship in Columbus, Ohio.
“I said ‘Baby, if you finish third, you should be so thankful,’ ” Brian says. “She goes, ‘Daddy, if he finishes last I’m going to be thankful. But he’s going to win.’” And then he did win. MJB, a small runt horse with no pedigree, won the Ohio Sire Stakes Championship. Breana took home $100,000. She gave half to charity and is saving the rest to buy a farm someday.