Belmont Stakes winner Mo Donegal retired to stud at Spendthrift Farm

Belmont Stakes winner Mo Donegal has been retired and will begin his stud career in 2023 at Spendthrift Farm, the farm announced late Friday night.

The Belmont Stakes on June 11 proved to be the career finale for Mo Donegal, who was originally campaigned by Donegal Racing, with Mike Repole joining in partnership this spring. The connections reported on July 2 that Mo Donegal had bone bruising and would be taken out of training for 60 days, ruling him out of the major summer and fall races. It was ultimately decided that the colt would be retired. His introductory fee will be $20,000.

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“The Donegal Racing partners and I could not be more proud of Mo Donegal and the special places he took us the last two seasons,” Donegal’s Jerry Crawford said in Spendthrift’s release. “The timing of the bone bruising was unfortunate and not going to allow us to make any of our target races for the remainder of the year. We felt the best decision was to retire him, and we are excited that he'll get a wonderful opportunity to make a great stallion at a place like Spendthrift.”

A maiden winner in his second start as a juvenile, Mo Donegal, by Uncle Mo, captured the Grade 2 Remsen last December at Aqueduct, defeating Zandon, who became a classic-placed Grade 1 winner this season. Mo Donegal opened his 3-year-old season by finishing third in the Grade 3 Holy Bull behind White Abarrio and Simplification. He then won the Grade 2 Wood Memorial by a neck over Early Voting, who went on to take the Preakness Stakes.

Mo Donegal drew the rail in the full field for the Kentucky Derby. At one point 10 wide while trying to work out a trip, he rallied from 14th at the quarter pole to finish fifth, beaten just more than 3 1/2 lengths. Five weeks later, Mo Donegal won the Belmont Stakes by three lengths over the filly Nest, the Kentucky Oaks runner-up who seized control of her division with a pair of dominant Grade 1 victories this summer at Saratoga.

“The classic winners that come through our program will always be special to me, and Mo Donegal showed in his Belmont Stakes win what we have always thought of him,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “We went into the Derby this year with a lot of confidence, but the one-hole was just too much to overcome. Obviously, having trained Uncle Mo, it was nice for us to be able to campaign one of his best sons.”

Uncle Mo, the Eclipse Award champion 2-year-old of 2010, made a smashing start to his stud career by setting what was then a freshman sire earnings record in 2015, led by unbeaten Eclipse champion juvenile Nyquist. That colt went on to win the 2016 Kentucky Derby. As Uncle Mo continues to build his own stud career - he is the sire of 87 stakes winners - he is also swiftly developing a reputation as a sire of sires. Nyquist was the leading freshman sire of 2020, led by Eclipse champion Vequist, and sons of Uncle Mo dominated that year's freshman list, with Laoban second and Outwork fourth.

Mo Donegal will be the second son of Uncle Mo to stand at Spendthrift. The farm introduced Grade 1-winning sprinter Yaupon this year.

“It’s not often you can offer breeders a classic winner by an emerging sire of sires, which Uncle Mo appears to be,” Spendthrift general manager Ned Toffey said. “On top of that, Mo Donegal is very good-looking, comes from a brilliant and active family, was a 2-year-old graded stakes winner and defeated some of the best from a pretty good crop of 3-year-olds this year. We expect him to be extremely popular, and we invite breeders to come out and see him.”