Kentucky Derby pedigree profile: Rapture

Rapture

Colt by Uncle Mo – Positively Royal, by Bernardini

Bred in Kentucky by Bill Mathis and Terry Mathis, MST LLC, and Rochelle Bloodstock ($300,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase by China Horse Club, Maverick Racing, and Siena Farm).

Eclipse Award champion and prominent sire Uncle Mo, who died in December at a relatively young 16, has several large and well-bred crops in the pipeline to try to add to his accomplishments at stud. His current 3-year-olds represent his fourth-to-last crop, and among the group is the lightly raced Rapture, entered in Saturday’s Virginia Derby. He is from a productive cross.

Uncle Mo is the sire of 116 career stakes winners to date, including 15 Grade 1 winners in the United States. He is the sire of a pair of American classic winners. Nyquist, from Uncle Mo’s first crop, won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to earn a divisional title and went on to win the 2016 Kentucky Derby. Another son, Mo Donegal, captured the 2022 Belmont Stakes.

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Positively Royal got her only win from four starts in her debut, going five furlongs. Rapture is one of her three winners from five starters, also including Roman Empire, third in the restricted Sunshine Classic at 1 1/8 miles. Positively Royal is a half-sister to Grade 1 Pimlico Special winner Eddington, who was third in the Preakness Stakes. This is the family of champion turf mare Possibly Perfect and Grade/Group 1 winners Chiropractor, Coil, and Miserden.

The late champion Bernardini, winner of the Preakness, has left a legacy as a stellar broodmare sire. His daughters have produced 129 stakes winners, led by Eclipse Award champion Immersive, Sovereign Award champion Gretzky the Great, Kentucky Oaks winner Serengeti Empress, and multiple Grade 1 winners like Catholic Boy, Clairiere, Colonel Liam, and Maxfield.

Uncle Mo is the sire of seven stakes winners out of Bernardini mares, including Grade 1 winner Mo Town. Immersive and Gretzky the Great are both by Uncle Mo’s son Nyquist. Further proving the efficacy of this cross, Grade 2 winner Mopotism, the dam of Kentucky Derby hopeful Journalism, is by Uncle Mo and out of a Bernardini mare.

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