Mo Donegal

A Monday news story in the Blood-Horse stating that the New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) would be taking no action on a formal protest lodged by the owner of the runner-up in the Dec. 4 GII Remsen S. came as a surprise to that owner and his attorney, who told TDN later in the day they had received no communication from the commission indicating that the protest wouldn't be allowed to advance. The matter involves Jeff Drown, the owner of Remsen second-place finisher Zandon (Upstart), who said that the...

The Jorge Navarro case was back in the news last week as lawyers representing the federal government submitted a sentencing letter regarding the disgraced trainer to Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil. They recommended that Navarro get the maximum allowable sentence for doping racehorses under his care, five years. He will be sentenced Friday. The government lawyers did their job and they did it well, and they want no mercy for the Juice Man. Read the sentencing letter and the first conclusion you will come to is probably the same one I...

The owner of the runner-up in last Saturday's GII Remsen S. at Aqueduct has lodged a protest with the New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) over the stewards' non-disqualification of the winner by a nose in that race after both an inquiry and a jockey's foul claim regarding the stretch run. Dave Grening of Daily Racing Form first reported the news on Thursday. He quoted Jeff Drown, the owner of second-place finisher Zandon (Upstart), who said that the actions of victor Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo) and that colt's jockey, Irad...

Jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. has been handed a 30-day suspension by the Aqueduct stewards for his ride aboard Gran Casique (Algorithms) in the eighth race on Friday. News of the suspension was confirmed late Sunday by NYRA spokesman Pat McKenna. McKenna said the suspension would begin "some time this week." Aboard Gran Casique, Ortiz came over several paths toward the rail on the run down the backstretch and cut off Ragtime Blues (Union Rags) and apprentice jockey Omar Hernandez Moreno. The infraction was so egregious that the Equibase chart caller...

The Week in Review by T.D. Thornton It was a little odd to see Oaklawn Park in the mix of tracks running on the first weekend of December. It was even stranger to see the Arkansas track carding races for 2-year-olds, which has not happened since Mar. 27, 1975. The winds of change are blowing through the pre-winter mists of Hot Springs. The biggest challenge facing Oaklawn as it embarks upon a Dec. 3-May 8 season for the first time is whether or not the popular track can retain the...

It was 32 minutes that breeders Richard Santulli and the Lyster family will not soon forget. That was all the time it took for the partnership, which owns a limited number of mares, to have bred the winners of two graded stakes races on the same day at the same racetrack. The feat occurred Saturday at Aqueduct where the Lysters' Ashview Farm and Santulli's Colts Neck Stables bred the winners of the GII Demoiselle S. and the GII Remsen S., contested as the eighth and ninth races on the Big...

Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo) and Zandon (Upstart)--the top two choices in Saturday's GII Remsen S. at the Big A--both entered off promising last-out maiden victories and put on a show down the stretch with the former getting there by a hard-fought nose while surviving a stewards' inquiry in the process. The rail-drawn, 7-5 chance Mo Donegal sat the trip in an inside fourth through easy fractions of :25.18 and :51.47 established by longshot Fromanothamutha (Unified). Locked and loaded beneath the hot-handed Irad Ortiz, Jr. rounding the far turn, he swung...

Donegal Racing's Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo) will go postward as the likely favorite Saturday in Aqueduct's GII Remsen S. Third on debut sprinting at Belmont Sept. 30, the $250,000 KEESEP acquisition earned his diploma when extended to a route of ground at Big Sandy Oct. 21, earning an 82 Beyer Speed Figure. "We feel like the mile and an eighth will suit him well," trainer Todd Pletcher said. "He had a good work at Belmont last week. It seems like the further he goes, the better he gets." Chad Brown...