Kentucky Derby pedigree profile: Caracaro

Caracaro

Uncle Mo – Peace Time, by War Front Bred in Kentucky by SF Bloodstock ($95,000 Keeneland November weanling purchase by Global Thoroughbred)

On Travers Day in 2010, Uncle Mo announced himself to the world, with a 14 1/4-length debut victory on the undercard at Saratoga. A decade later in the 2020 Runhappy Travers, his son Caracaro continued to give a good account of himself at Saratoga, running second to Kentucky Derby favorite Tiz the Law in the 151st renewal. It was the second stakes placing for the colt at Saratoga, as he finished second in the Grade 2 Peter Pan stakes earlier in the meet.

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Uncle Mo, by Indian Charlie, followed his debut victory with Grade 1 scores in the Champagne Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to lock up his divisional championship. He went on to be a Grade 2 winner in a 3-year-old campaign interrupted by illness. Uncle Mo was emulated in his first crop by Nyquist, who put together an unbeaten juvenile campaign, capped by the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to earn the divisional Eclipse. He also helped Uncle Mo establish an earnings record for a North American freshman sire.

Nyquist, who went on to win the Kentucky Derby the next spring, is one of eight Grade 1 winners for Uncle Mo, who is having a solid season with his 3-year-old colts, these representing the crop conceived the spring after his record-setting freshman season. Along with Caracaro, he is the sire of Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby winner King Guillermo, who is already at Churchill Downs to train toward the Kentucky Derby; Pneumatic, likely bound for the Preakness after winning the Grade 3 Pegasus Stakes last weekend; and Modernist, winner of a division of the Grade 2 Risen Star earlier this year.

Caracaro is out of the placed War Front mare Peace Time. Her dam, Santa Catarina, won the Grade 2 Hollywood Breeders’ Cup Oaks at 1 1/16 miles and acquitted herself well in other major events around two turns, finishing second in the Kentucky Oaks and third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. This is the extended family of European champion filly Culture Vulture.