Uncle Mo to start jogging on Monday at WinStar Farm

Uncle Mo, the 2010 2-year-old champion male who missed this year’s Kentucky Derby due to what was eventually diagnosed as rare liver disease, is scheduled to start jogging on Monday at WinStar Farm, according to his owner, Mike Repole.

Repole said that Uncle Mo was to walk the shed row under tack and with a rider on his back on Saturday and Sunday before returning to the track on Monday. Uncle Mo has not trained since May 6 when he galloped at Churchill Downs. Later that morning, Repole and trainer Todd Pletcher scratched Uncle Mo from the May 7 Derby.

Repole said that Uncle Mo has gained 100 pounds in the almost six weeks since he’s been at WinStar in Lexington, Ky. He has been transferred from a one-acre paddock to a 1 1/2-acre paddock where he spends a large portion of each day.

On June, 8, after undergoing a battery of tests from a trio of veterinarians, Uncle Mo was officially diagnosed with Cholangiohepatitis, a rare disease affecting the liver and specifically the production, secretion, and distribution of bile.

Repole said that recent bloodwork taken on Uncle Mo is improving. Repole said there is no specific timetable for Uncle Mo’s training regimen at WinStar. The hope is that Uncle Mo would jog for 10 days to two weeks before starting to gallop for the same amount of time and then be sent to trainer Todd Pletcher’s Belmont Park barn in mid- to late July.

"Uncle Mo will tell us," Repole said. "If his body can’t withstand the rigors of training at the track he will be retired. Right now, I’m very optimistic; the doctors are all optimistic, it’s all positive. But this game is a great cure for overconfidence. At the end of the day, you can be sure I’ll do what’s best for the horse."

Uncle Mo won all three of his starts as a 2-year-old including the Grade 1 Champagne and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. He won his 3-year-old debut, an overnight stakes at Gulfstream Park, before finishing third in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct on April 9.