Remembering Uncle Mo, gone too soon

The champion son of Indian Charlie was 16

By Frances J. Karon

When I wrote about Uncle Mo’s 100th stakes winner earlier this year—you can read about his race record, accomplishments, and sire line at that link as well—I certainly didn’t expect to be penning an in memoriam post eight months later. But following owner Mike Repole’s announcement yesterday on X of the stallion’s humane euthanasia after sustaining a foreleg injury on Wednesday and a “recovery process [from surgery that was] too much for him to endure” on Thursday morning, here we are.

As a matter of housekeeping, this is where we mention that Uncle Mo is the sire of 109 stakes winners, with 16 Grade 1 winners, 16 Grade 2 winners, and 25 Grade 3 winners among them. Three of his sons have already sired N. American Grade 1 winners—champion Nyquist (seven, including champions Gretzky the Great and Vequist), Outwork (two), and Laoban (one). And considering that six of Uncle Mo’s Grade 1-winning sons are in the earlier stages of their stud careers—Arabian Knight, Golden Pal, Kingsbarns, Mo Donegal, Mo Forza, and Yaupon—with no foals of racing age yet, we can expect a boom of graded stakes horses tracing to Uncle Mo in the coming years.

Not to be outdone by his sons, Uncle Mo’s daughters are also representing him well, as the dams of Grade 1 winners Geaux Rocket Ride (Candy Ride), Howard Wolowitz (Munnings), Muth (Good Magic), and the star of 2024, Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna).

Uncle Mo (2008-2024)

Economic implications of the loss of a relatively young stallion with a big future aside, there’s the usual shock and anger of being reminded that despite being in the best of hands under the best of care, as Uncle Mo was at his longtime home at Coolmore America, horses—even champions and breed shapers—are vulnerable to being horses.

It’s an eerie coincidence that Uncle Mo and his sire Indian Charlie were not only both born in March of their respective years but likewise passed away in December at the age of 16: Indian Charlie from cancer on December 15th, 2011, and Uncle Mo on December 19th, 2024.

Uncle Mo was the proverbial “plain brown wrapper”—a pure breeding bay, sure, but you’d be hard pressed to find many of his progeny with more than a little bit of white, if even that much—but there was nothing ordinary about him. Having taken what I’ve many times since lamented as a “mugshot” of a newly turned then-yearling Uncle Mo in January of 2009 when he was 10 months old, I had the picture saved on my phone once he’d become a champion. In the summer of 2018, by then almost seven years after Uncle Mo had retired to stud, I was at Belmont Park to write an article on John Velazquez for North American Trainer, and I approached Todd Pletcher, who had trained Uncle Mo, after training hours to get some quotes from him on the jockey. Before I left his barn office, I showed him the picture below with no context and asked if he knew who it was. He took my phone, studied the horse for maybe five seconds, and said with conviction, “Uncle Mo.”

Uncle Mo at Glencrest Farm when he was 10 months old.

It’s a small consolation that his legacy—he’s singlehandedly responsible for the renaiassance of the Caro sire line begun by his sire Indian Charlie—will live on. At the upcoming Eclipse Awards ceremony in January, Uncle Mo’s undefeated granddaughter Immersive, by his Kentucky Derby-winning son Nyquist, will be crowned champion 2-year-old filly; and his granddaughter Thorpedo Anna, out of his unraced daughter Sataves, will be crowned champion 3-year-old filly and, quite possibly, Horse of the Year.