Owners of Nova Rags shift focus from hoops to horses for Florida Derby Day

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Mike Shanley is a Villanova University graduate and a huge fan of the school’s basketball program, but pardon the 74-year-old retired attorney if he is preoccupied when the Wildcats face heavily favored Baylor in the NCAA tournament late Saturday afternoon.

“As much as I love the school and Villanova basketball, both of my eyes are going to be focused on that racetrack,” Shanley said with a chuckle this week from Ocean Ridge, Fla.

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It’s with good reason that Shanley will ignore the Gulfstream television monitors for a while. Shanley has his first legitimate prospect for the Kentucky Derby in his homebred Nova Rags, who, while the ballgame is being played, will seek a Derby berth when he faces the toughest assignment of his career in the Grade 1, $750,000 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park.

Shanley and his wife, Lyn, are longtime supporters of New York racing and its backstretch workers. The couple is based primarily in upstate New York, just outside of Albany, where he has retired as a practicing attorney specializing in real-estate development. Mike’s love of horses goes way back to when his parents bought him a pony at age 4. He eventually became a horse owner in the 1980s, then got more heavily involved in the industry as a longtime board member and vice president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, serving about 20 years before retiring a few years ago.

“Being as involved as I was with the horsemen’s association and the wonderful people on the backstretch, this is a great step in this long story of mine,” said Shanley, whose top former runners include Grade 1 winners Turk Passer and Whitmore’s Conn.

Nova Rags, with Junior Alvarado riding for trainer Bill Mott, figures among the middling wagering choices behind favored Greatest Honour in the Florida Derby. A winner at first asking in a six-furlong maiden race Oct. 10 at Belmont Park, Nova Rags then was a distant fourth in the Nashua in his only other start at 2. In his two starts as a 3-year-old, both at Tampa Bay Downs, Nova Rags easily won the seven-furlong Pasco on Jan. 16, then wheeled back three weeks later in the 1 1/16-mile Sam F. Davis to finish second by a length to his Mott-trained stablemate Candy Man Rocket.

For all his innumerable feats in a Hall of Fame career, Mott has never won the Florida Derby. His 29-year-old son and assistant, Riley, said they’re hopeful this will be the first.

“The horse is doing well,” Riley Mott said. “He’s run well in stakes company, but it’s time to find out how he stacks up with the big boys. It’s that time of year where you really find out where you stand. It will be a good measuring stick for the horse, and the result will give us a good idea what direction to go in heading forward. No easy spots from here on out.”

Nova Rags is a chestnut Kentucky-bred by Union Rags, the 2012 Belmont Stakes winner, and is the last of 12 foals to race from the 22-year-old mare Wishful Splendor, whom Shanley said he purchased “about 10 or 12 years ago” at auction at Keeneland. Nova Rags’s name comes from combining the shortened version of Shanley’s alma mater with the sire’s name, he said.

Nova Rags is among what is expected to be a sizable field. The 14-race Saturday card starts at 11:30 a.m. Eastern, with the last six races featuring a forceout of the Rainbow 6 jackpot.