Wood Memorial Next for Uncle Mo
Early Kentucky Derby favorite Uncle Mo, an easy and impressive winner of his 2011 debut, will most likely prepare for the 137th Run for the Roses in the Grade 1, $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct Racetrack on April 9, trainer Todd Pletcher said Sunday morning.
Owned by Mike Repole, the 3-year-old Indian Charlie colt scored his fourth win in as many starts in Saturday’s $100,000 Timely Writer at Gulfstream Park, covering the mile in 1:36.56 in his first race since taking the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile by 4 ¾ lengths on November 6.
“He came out of the race yesterday very well,” said Pletcher from his barn at Palm Meadows training center. “The plan all along has been to go to the Wood; I don’t think anything has changed out of that.”
Purchased for $220,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale, Uncle Mo made a sensational debut at Saratoga Race Course on August 28 and then won the Grade 1 Champagne at Belmont Park on October 9 en route to his Breeders’ Cup victory and the Eclipse Award as the nation’s top 2-Year-Old Colt.
“One thing I will say, I’m not going to micromanage a five-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer,” said Repole, who also owns Grade 3 Gotham winner Stay Thirsty. “If Todd tells me we’re going to the Wood, Florida Derby, Louisiana Derby, or Arkansas Derby, that’s where we’ll go. Right now he’s saying Uncle Mo is going to the Wood, and Stay Thirsty is going to the Florida Derby, and that’s the way things are working out. If they stay healthy, 99.99 percent that’s the plan.”
The 1 1/8-mile Wood Memorial, New York’s final major prep for the May 7 Derby, has long been a springboard to success at Churchill Downs. Beginning with Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox in 1930, 11 Wood winners have gone on to take the Run for the Roses, among them Triple Crown heroes Count Fleet (1943), Assault (1946) and Seattle Slew (1977), as well as Twenty Grand (1931), Johnstown (1939), Hoop Jr. (1945), Foolish Pleasure (1975), Bold Forbes (1976), Pleasant Colony (1981) and Fusaichi Pegasus (2000).