'Rising Star' Donegal Momentum Exits Return Well, Points to Maker's Mark Mile
03/09/2025 04:56 PM
Trainer Tom Morley reports that 'TDN Rising Star' SW & GISP Donegal Momentum (Uncle Mo) has exited his Mar. 6 seasonal bow at Fair Grounds in good form and that the connections have started mapping out a potential path through his 2025 campaign.
Listing off plans which include a start in Keeneland's GI Maker's Mark Mile, the GIII Poker Stakes at the Spa, and the GI Fourstardave Stakes over the summer, Morely says it is not out of the wheelhouse that his charge might be running in a seven-furlong graded stakes in New York on the dirt.
“I think his ceiling is a mile and a sixteenth. I think he gets a mile well on grass,” Morley said. “However, there's a very real possibility that at some point he will run in a seven-furlong graded stakes in New York on the dirt. He's got a lovely pedigree and if he was to go to stud, a graded win on the dirt would be a big play on his resume. It's something Jerry [Crawford] and I have discussed multiple times.”
Since his debut in May last year on the main track, one which earned him the stamp of approval from the TDN, Donegal Momentum steadily improved until he eventually found himself in the winners' enclosure at the Belmont Big A meet by route of the Listed Gio Ponti Stakes in early October. He'd won for the first time on the grass the race prior in August when he defeated an allowance optional claiming field at Saratoga. The Uncle Mo colt gave a good showing against elite company in the GI Hollywood Derby at Del Mar in late November, which ended up his last race before going on his layoff.
“We had a go at seeing if he would get nine furlongs and went to California to do that as we felt that the ground might have gone against him in New York,” Morley said. “[The winner] Formidable Man came back to win the [GI Frank E.] Kilroe at the weekend and Mike McCarthy said to me before the Derby that, 'I'm only scared of your horse really. I think this is the best turf horse I've had in my barn.' That was an indication that we were running in what was an above average Hollywood Derby, in my opinion.”
Morley says Donegal Momentum will return to New York to train towards the aforementioned Maker's Mark Mile Apr. 11 at Keeneland.
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