Sexton Files: Uncle Mo leaves major void

This article was first published in the February edition of Owner Breeder

Rare are the stallions able to influence across the spectrum. Uncle Mo won’t go down in history as a champion sire but that statement fails to do justice to a horse whose stud career for Coolmore was defined by a clockwork ability to throw top-level performers while exerting an important presence as sire of sires and damsire. As such, his sudden death in December at Ashford Stud at the age of 16 leaves a major void in international breeding.

One of the strengths to Uncle Mo lay in his background. As a son of Indian Charlie, he was a member of the Siberian Express branch of the Grey Sovereign line, whose once powerful influence is now wavering even in its natural home of France. This particular branch, which made its way to Kentucky via California, isn’t that typical of the line, not least because they tend to be bay dirt performers rather than grey turf runners. But Uncle Mo’s success, as well as that of his sons, does at least provide this line with something of a lease of life. Add in the fact that Uncle Mo was out of a daughter of Arch with the first strain of Northern Dancer not appearing until the fourth generation and it’s easy to see how he became an easy horse for breeders to utilise.

That should have included anyone with an eye on racing in Europe, where he was woefully underrepresented. When an American-based stallion becomes so successful as a provider of dirt horses, there is sometimes a perception that he is irrelevant outside of the US. However, a number of his better progeny did actually work out for the best on grass, notably Golden Pal, a brilliantly fast turf sprinter for Wesley Ward, and Mo Town, winner of the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby. Of the few runners on this side of the Atlantic, Lipizzaner took the Listed Doncaster Stakes for Aidan O’Brien. Ballydoyle also houses Takemetothemoon, City Of Troy’s half-sister who ran third on her debut at Leopardstown at the back-end of last season.

However, Uncle Mo will be remembered first and foremost as an archetypal North American stallion. Trained by Todd Pletcher, he was a brilliant two-year-old for Mike Repole, in whose colours he capped a championship first campaign by winning the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Repole is on the record as saying it was Uncle Mo who triggered his heightened interest in racing. Today he is an important player in the sport as an owner and investor; had Uncle Mo not come along at that time, perhaps that wouldn’t be the case.

Illness restricted Uncle Mo’s three-year-old season to five starts highlighted by a win in the Grade 2 Kelso Handicap and he was retired to stand for Coolmore straight after an underwhelming run in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Success was immediate. His first crop, bred off $35,000, contained 25 stakes winners including many of that generation’s leading protagonists led by Nyquist, who emulated his sire by winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Gomo, winner of the Grade 1 Alcibiades Stakes, was another major contributor to Uncle Mo’s first-crop sire championship, won with a then record of approximately $3.6 million. Not only that, there were numerous early indications the following year that his progeny were training on; Nyquist went on to win the Kentucky Derby, Outwork took the Grade 1 Wood Memorial while Grade 2 winners Mokat and Laoban held their own in Grade 1 company.

There have been Grade 1 winners in each of Uncle Mo’s next seven crops since then. They are a varied bunch, comprising of good 2yos such as Dream Tree and Bast, top dirt sprinter Yaupon and a Belmont Stakes winner in Mo Donegal not to mention the aforementioned turf runners Golden Pal and Mo Town. And he heads into 2025 with several lively Classic prospects led by Godolphin’s Grade 2-winning homebred First Resort.

In a measure of how quickly he became regarded as ‘a sire of sires’, Uncle Mo was only 12 when he appeared as the paternal grandsire of a Breeders’ Cup winner

At the same time, his sire line has gained momentum via the various early sons at stud. In a measure of how quickly he became regarded as ‘a sire of sires’, Uncle Mo was only 12 when he appeared as the paternal grandsire of a Breeders’ Cup winner. The filly in question, the 2020 Juvenile Fillies heroine Vequist, hailed from the first crop of Nyquist and was one of two Grade 1 winners for her sire that year alongside the top Canadian two-year-old Gretzky The Great.

Nyquist today heads Darley’s Kentucky roster at $175,000, a figure reflective of a very productive 2024 during which he supplied four Grade 1 winners, among them juvenile champion filly elect Immersive, and three million dollar yearlings.

Nyquist’s first runners coincided with those belonging to Outwork, the sire of two Grade 1 winners, and Laoban, whose smaller, more cheaply-bred first group of New York-bred representatives contained its own Grade 1-winning two-year-old in Simply Ravishing. That prompted a switch to Kentucky at WinStar Farm for 2021 but he died before completing that season.

Kentucky is currently home to no fewer than ten sons of Uncle Mo. Nyquist leads the way but that the other end of the spectrum are two effective value options in Coolmore’s Mo Town, a top 50 North American sire of 2024 who stands for just $5,000, and Crestwood Farm’s Caracaro, who has undergone a minor increase to $10,000 after siring a pair of stakes winners in his first crop. In fact, such was the good word on Caracaro’s first two-year-olds last spring that his book size swelled to 151, up from 67 the year before.

Of the others, expectations run high for Yaupon at Spendthrift Farm. He has over 180 two-year-olds to go to war with and buyers couldn’t get enough of his first yearlings last year, with no fewer than 30 making north of $300,000.

Even more popular with breeders has been Golden Pal, the recipient of over 500 mares in his first two seasons at Coolmore.

2024 was also the year that Uncle Mo hit full stride as a broodmare sire. Leading the charge was the year’s dominant American three-year-old filly Thorpedo Anna, bred by Judy Hicks out of Sataves (unraced due to a birth defect). A daughter of the nondescript Fast Anna, she has carried all before her for Kenny McPeek so far in her career, winning last year’s Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks, Acorn Stakes, Coaching Club American Oaks, Cotillion Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Distaff.

Fellow Grade 1 winners Howard Wolowitz (by Munnings) and Muth (by Good Magic) also contributed to a breakthrough year for Uncle Mo’s daughters. He ended the year as a top 25 American broodmare sire, a list which contains only three stallions born after 2002. Indeed, Uncle Mo is the youngest name within the top 100.

Uncle Mo was due to stand at $125,000 in 2025 and would have undoubtedly received another sizeable book. However, Kentucky’s consistent appreciation of him means that he still has several big crops in the pipeline to run alongside a growing legacy seemingly in safe keeping through his sons and daughters.

 

Purple patch for Valirann keeps O’Neill’s name in lights

Irish jumps racing lost a true friend late last year with the death of Ronnie O’Neill of Whytemount Stud.

The popular trainer and breeder almost single-handedly developed Stowaway into a champion jumps sire, his extensive early support driving him from a near-private resident into one of Europe’s busiest stallions.

At the time of his death at the age of 74, O’Neill presided over a popular roster of six stallions. Quick to support the idea of Sea The Stars as a positive National Hunt influence, the list includes three sons of the Gilltown Stud stallion in Affinisea, who assumed Stowaway’s mantle of Europe’s busiest sire in 2021, Derby runner-up Mojo Star, who stands in conjunction with Amo Racing, and Behesht, who has covered north of 120 mares since his $3,500 purchase out of the 2022 Keeneland January Sale.

The Galileo horse Feel Like Dancing, sire of the Grade 1-winning hurdler Dancing City, also resides at the Kilkenny outfit as does Monsun’s Group 2-winning son Manatee.

However, quite whether anyone associated with the stud expected Valirann to outshine the above and keep the Whytemount name in lights during the Christmas period is surely doubtful.

A glance at the recent covering figures for Valirann is enough to glean that the son of Nayef isn’t really at the forefront of breeders’ minds. In the past two seasons, he has covered the grand total of 19 mares, a far cry from the 120 that he attracted in 2021. However, that deserves to change if results from the past month are anything to go by.

In six-year-old Potters Charm (right), Valirann has one of the most exciting British-based novice hurdlers on his books. The Nigel Twiston-Davies-trained gelding, bred by Gerard Flynn out of an unraced Shantou mare and a £105,000 purchase by connections at the 2023 Tattersalls Cheltenham December Sale, put his unbeaten record over hurdles on the line in the Grade 1 Formby Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree on Boxing Day and emerged with his reputation enhanced thanks to an authoritative win over Miami Magic.

Valirann hit the news again the following day at Chepstow but on this occasion due to a very different type of animal in Val Dancer, who thrived over the marathon extended 3m6f trip to take the Welsh National for Mel Rowley. He was bred by Charles Persse out of Katies Dancer, a rare point-to-point winner by Danehill Dancer.

Valirann’s earlier representatives also include two high-profile jumpers from last season in Knapton Hill and Forward Plan, successful in the Grade 2 Kingwell Hurdle and Grade 3 Coral Handicap Chase respectively. So this latest purple patch isn’t exactly a bolt out of the blue. It also vindicates the backing of O’Neill, who sourced the horse from the Aga Khan for the 2015 season. From the Lagardere family of the Group 1-producing sire Val Royal, Valirann was slow to come to hand for Alain de Royer-Dupre, as might be expected from a May-foaled Nayef. But once unleashed in the summer of his three-year-old year, he rattled off four successive victories culminating in the Group 2 Prix Chaudenay at Longchamp’s Arc meeting.

Valirann never ran again after that performance and went missing for a year until retiring to Whytemount, which probably didn’t help his cause. But working firmly in his corner was the support of his home base. O’Neill utilised Valirann from the outset much like Stowaway all those years ago and such today appears as the breeder of several of the stallion’s better earlier representatives, notably Knapton Hill. The list also includes another potentially smart one by the sire in Lecky Watson, who claimed the scalp of Slade Steel on his chasing debut for Willie Mullins at Naas in mid-December before landing a Grade 3 novice event at Punchestown by eight lengths.