LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Uncle Mo was supposed to return to Churchill Downs for the Breeders’ Cup as a conquering hero. He was the buzz horse coming into the Kentucky Derby, having won the first four races of his career and earning top 2-year-old honors.
But he never made it to the starting gate.
Uncle Mo was knocked out on Derby eve by a serious liver disease. When owner Mike Repole left Louisville in May, he didn’t know if he would ever see his best horse again.
The colt was sidelined for four months because of the illness, leaving Repole, trainer Todd Pletcher and others around Uncle Mo to wonder if it was a race he could win.
Now he appears back on his game.
Uncle Mo got nosed out for the win in the King’s Bishop in August, leaving Repole bummed out.
“I was down because I’ve been on such an emotional ride with this horse,” the owner from Queens said Wednesday. “I wanted that win so bad for Uncle Mo. That was a tough loss.”
The colt bounced back to win the Kelso Handicap by three lengths in his last start, a race Repole called Uncle Mo’s redemption. He’s the 5-2 early favorite for the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Saturday even though he’s never run 1 1-4 miles and faces challengers like filly Havre de Grace, Flat Out and European import So You Think.
“This is Mo’s Kentucky Derby,” Repole said.
“Uncle Mo is the most talented horse in the race. There’s no doubt in my mind.”
He also owns another contender in the 12-horse field — Belmont runner-up Stay Thirsty at 12-1.
“They’re both going to run big races,” Repole said.
They sure did last year. Uncle Mo won the BC Juvenile and Stay Thirsty finished fifth, giving Repole a huge taste of success in his first trip to thoroughbred racing’s richest two days.
“He went into the winter with about as much buzz as you can have with a 2-year-old,” Pletcher said of Uncle Mo. “He started off the year well, unfortunately, the liver infection cost us a big chunk of the spring and summer. But we’re back in excellent shape now.”
Initially, Uncle Mo was treated for a gastrointestinal infection, but he didn’t respond before the Derby, in which he was the second favorite, and was scratched the day before the race.
He wasn’t eating right, he didn’t look good and he began dropping 200 pounds. Veterinarians were puzzled when biopsies of his stomach, liver and lymph nodes didn’t immediately produce answers and put his life in jeopardy. His case reminded them of filly Devil May Care, who ran in the 2010 Derby and was trained by Pletcher.
She became sick and had elevated liver enzymes (like Uncle Mo) before being diagnosed with a non-contagious form of hepatitis. She died of cancer in May.
“We were all concerned that Uncle Mo was going down that path,” said Repole, who was told there was a 25 percent chance that his colt had cancer. “When a 1,250-pound animal is hurting internally, he can’t say, ‘Hey Mommy, my tummy hurts.’ It’s hard to figure out what it is.”
Repole poured money into finding out what was wrong.
“To me, he’s a family member,” said the 42-year-old fast-talking Queens, N.Y., native who got rich selling his Vitaminwater company to Coca-Cola.
The answer came in June, when Uncle Mo was diagnosed with cholangiohepatitis, a rare liver disease that causes severe inflammation of the bile passages and liver that can sometimes be fatal.
Repole was relieved to finally learn what was wrong with the star of his 80-horse stable.
“This horse is always going to be part of my life. If it happened again two years from now, I needed to know why,” he said. “When I’m 85-years-old and in a nursing home and they say, ‘Why did you scratch the (second) Derby favorite?’, I can come up with the answer.”
Most thoroughbreds go race-to-race, with their health and conditioning dictating when they will run next. With Uncle Mo, Repole calls Pletcher daily to check on how he feels, how much he ate and how he looks.
Repole dismissed what he called “all the beautiful rumors” that something might be amiss with Uncle Mo, who galloped 1 3-8 miles Wednesday after not going to the track a day earlier.
“He’s doing so well right now,” he said. “He looks awesome.”
Repole finds it fitting that the Breeders’ Cup is at Churchill Downs this year considering it’s where Uncle Mo’s health crisis emerged six months ago.
“You can only be a 3-year-old on the first Saturday in May one time in your life and sometimes you’re not right on that day. Unfortunately he wasn’t, but he’s got another shot,” he said.
“I can tell him it’s the Kentucky Derby. He won’t know the difference.”