Kentucky Derby pedigree profile: Modernist

Modernist

Uncle Mo – Symbolic Gesture, by Bernardini

Bred in Kentucky by Wygod Family, LLC

Pam and Marty Wygod’s homebred Modernist has now won consecutive races at 1 1/8 miles following his front-running score in a division of the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds. The colt is continuing to display the stamina bred into him from both sides of his family, including a female family that has been kind to the Wygods.

Modernist is by Eclipse Award champion and prominent young sire Uncle Mo, who in his first crop sired 2016 Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist, the previous year’s champion juvenile. Since then, Uncle Mo has been represented by U.S. Grade 1 winners Bast, Dream Tree, Gomo, Mo Forza, Mo Town, Outwork, and Unbridled Mo, all of whom scored top-level wins around two turns.

Modernist is out of the unraced Bernardini mare Symbolic Gesture, who is out of the Wygods’s Grade 1-placed homebred Sweet Life. That mare was honored as Broodmare of the Year after producing a pair of top-quality daughters in Sweet Catomine and Life Is Sweet, both of whom excelled around two turns. Sweet Catomine earned the Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old filly after winning the 2004 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and went on to win the following year’s Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks. Her full sister, Life Is Sweet, was a multiple Grade 1 winner, highlighted by her victory in the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic. That season’s divisional Eclipse Award went to her stablemate Zenyatta.

Sweet Life also produced Grade 2-placed stakes winner Calimonco. The family has continued to be active, as Sweet Catomine’s daughter Sweet Thoughts recently produced stakes winner Naughty Thoughts, and another of Life Is Sweet’s daughters, Sweet Way, is the dam of a pair of Grade 2-placed runners.

Champion Bernardini, a son of stamina influence A.P. Indy, added to the line’s classic success by winning the 2006 Preakness Stakes and has continued to pass on the stamina as an emerging broodmare sire. His daughters have produced Kentucky Oaks winner Serengeti Empress, Preakness Stakes third-place finisher Owendale, and Grade 1-winning routers Catholic Boy, Dunbar Road, Maxfield, Mo Town, and Wicked Whisper. Mo Town is by Uncle Mo, and this cross also has produced Grade 2 winner Mopotism.

– Nicole Russo