Michael W. McCarthy

Michael McCarthy took out his trainer’s license in 2006 and picked up several graded stakes victories while filling in for Todd Pletcher in 2007, including the Grade 1 Las Virgenes Stakes with Rags to Riches. He served as a longtime assistant to Eclipse Award winner Pletcher before going out on his own for good in 2014.

He won the Grade 3 Bob Hope Stakes with No Problem in 2014 and scored another Grade 1 with Illuminant in 2016 when she won the Gamely Stakes at Santa Anita Park.

He trained several standouts in 2018 in multiple graded stakes winners City of Light and Axelrod as well as Grade 2 winners Liam the Charmer and Paved and graded stakes winner The Lieutenant. Later that year, McCarthy landed his first Breeders’ Cup victory when City of Light turned on the afterburners in the stretch and streaked clear to a tour de force in the 2018 Dirt Mile.

In City of Light's final start in January 2019, he gave McCarthy a major moment when he delivered a dominant, runaway victory over 2018 Breeders' Cup Classic winner, Accelerate, in the $9 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes.

McCarthy earned his first career Triple Crown race win in the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes with Rombauer on May 15, 2021. Rombauer had previously won the El Camino Real Derby, then skipped the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve to prepare for the Preakness. That fall, McCarthy picked up his second winner at the Breeders’ Cup when Ce Ce upset heavily favored Gamine in the Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar.

Michael McCarthy was back in the national spotlight again during the 2025 Triple Crown season with Journalism, who McCarthy trained to wins in Santa Anita's biggest Kentucky Derby prep races, the San Felipe Stakes and the Santa Anita Derby. Journalism finished second as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby but was right back again two weeks later in the Preakness Stakes on May 17, 2025, at Pimlico, where Journalism delivered as the even-money favorite to give McCarthy his second career Preakness Stakes victory.