Veteran Grade 3 Winner Cordmaker Gearing Up to Resume Season
Pair of Allowances Highlight Laurel’s Live Eight-Race Card Friday
Nominations Close Saturday for Pair of $100,000 Turf Stakes Aug. 6

BALTIMORE – It took some time to get Mo Money Mo Honey to the races, but no time at all for the offers to start coming in following the 3-year-old Uncle Mo colt’s impressive debut victory July 16 at Laurel Park.

Owned by R.J. Bristle of Metropolitan Thoroughbreds and Robin Doser, Mo Money Mo Honey romped by six lengths as the even-money favorite over five rivals in a 5 ½-furlong maiden special weight for sophomores. The winning time was 1:04.62 over a fast main track.

“He came out of the race good. Actually we got a couple people that have offered us some money for him already,” trainer Ben Feliciano Jr. said. “They called us and threw some numbers out, but I don’t think the owners are selling him right now.”

Breaking from the rail, Mo Money Mo Honey got off a step slow in his unveiling but quickly gathered himself and was in front by the first call after going the opening quarter-mile in 22.98 seconds. He gradually pulled clear of the competition and took a five-length lead into the stretch, coasting to the wire under jockey Horacio Karamanos.

“He had been working really well. I actually told the owners, ‘I think you might have something,’” Feliciano said. “Everybody would come out and watch him work and the way he did things. We never really asked him to run, even in the morning.

“About the third work I said to Kevin Witte, Horacio’s agent, ‘Could you come over and breeze this horse for me because, honestly, I think he can run.’ Horacio came back and said, ‘This horse is all right,’” he added. “The more we kept working him the more we were thinking he was OK. I didn’t know if he was going to transfer that over to the races, but apparently he did.”

A son and grandson of champions, Mo Money Mo Honey is out of the Curlin mare Stopshoppingdebbie, who won nine of 10 career starts including eight stakes at Emerald Downs in Washington from 2012-14. Despite his breeding, Mo Money Mo Honey fetched just $14,000 at Keeneland’s September 2020 yearling sale.

Some time later Feliciano, named Maryland’s trainer of the year in 1998, learned from jockey agent John Santagata of some well-bred horses for sale in Kentucky by sires such as American Pharoah, Tapit and Uncle Mo.

“I was looking for horses to buy or claim for the owners,” Feliciano said. “I got a picture of the Uncle Mo and he looked good in the picture. He was a good-looking horse. I asked how much they wanted for him and they said $15,000. I said ‘$15,000? For an Uncle Mo?’”

Feliciano brought the idea to Bristle and Doser and they agreed to take a look at Mo Money Mo Honey and split the cost if they decided to buy.

“My ex-wife is in Kentucky and she’s actually right next to the farm, so I asked her to go down to look at him,” Feliciano said. “She said he’s big and pretty but he’s real fat and his feet are all messed up. I said for that amount, if he vets we’re buying him. He had something in his hock but other than that he was fine, so we took him and put him on a van and sent him back to us.”

Mo Money Mo Honey was foaled in Kentucky and his mare bred to other top sires such as Medaglia d’Oro, American Pharoah, Pioneerof the Nile and Street Sense.

“None of the babies had really done anything to speak of, so I think that’s maybe why he slipped through the [yearling] sale,” Feliciano said. “They’re breeding her to huge sires and they’re trying I guess to get something, but maybe we just got lucky and got one that looks like it could run. I don’t know what happened there, if it was fate or something.

“I’ve had horses come in and had babies come in along the line but mostly I’m known for claiming. I saw his picture and thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have an Uncle Mo in Maryland?’ he added. “When he came to the paddock the other day I saw people looking at the horse and saying, ‘Damn, he’s pretty.’ When you’ve got those kinds of horses with the breeding, it’s really nice.”

Feliciano said he will take the next logical step up in class with Mo Money Mo Honey, as well as continue to field the occasional phone call for his potential star.

“In the barn, he’s real quiet and lazy. It’s weird. Sometimes I don’t even know how we ended up with him. It’s crazy,” he said. “I’m just going to look for an a-other-than here in Maryland and take one step at a time with him. We did get some offers, but [Bristle] said it wasn’t anything that was going to change his life so he’ll just keep running him.”

Veteran Grade 3 Winner Cordmaker Gearing Up to Resume Season

Hillwood Stables’ Cordmaker, unraced since becoming a graded winner in the Feb. 19 General George (G3), is back at Laurel Park with trainer Rodney Jenkins and getting ready to resume his 7-year-old campaign.

Jenkins and owner Ellen Charles sent Cordmaker, a gelded son of two-time Horse of the Year and 2014 Hall of Famer Curlin, to his usual vacation spot at Dark Hollow Farm in Upperco, Md. after he ran at least once in 17 of 20 months dating back to July 2020 once racing resumed in Maryland following a hiatus amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“Cordmaker’s good. We just gave him a nice break. I scrubbed on him pretty good there for a while,” Jenkins said. “I’ll start him up in a couple weeks. We’re going to point for the stakes in the winter with him.”

Cordmaker owns 14 wins, 10 of them in stakes, from 36 career starts and is just $10,360 away from reaching the $1 million mark in purse earnings. Third in the historic Pimlico Special in 2019 and 2020, he went to the sidelines on a career-high four-race win streak.

Bred in Maryland by trainer Katy Voss and the late Bob Manfuso, Cordmaker won the Jan. 29 Jennings at Laurel to open 2022 after ending last year with victories in the Richard W. Small and Robert T. Manfuso to clinch the older male long dirt division and overall Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championship (MATCH) Series titles.

“If anyone deserved a nice vacation, it was him. He looks wonderful. He’s put his weight back on. We’ll see. I’ll run him here in about a month probably,” Jenkins said. “He came back dead sound and doesn’t have a pimple on him, knock on wood.

“He’s such a good horse. We’re looking forward to [his next race], but we’re taking our time,” he added. “We just leg him up and jog him and stuff like that. It doesn’t take much to get him fit.”

Jenkins is also looking forward to getting Hillwood’s Treasure Tradition back to the races. The 4-year-old Great Notion gelding, bred in Maryland by Morgan’s Ford Farm, has run first or second in his last five starts dating back to last October. He was a popular 2 ¼-length winner of a seven-furlong Maryland-bred/sired allowance March 26 at Laurel in his most recent effort.

“I like him a lot,” Jenkins said. “He’s a closer. He comes from way out of it, and he can run.”

Pair of Allowances Highlight Laurel’s Live Eight-Race Card Friday

Back-to-back allowance sprints for 3-year-olds and up, one scheduled for the All Along turf course, top an eight-race program when live action resumes Friday at Laurel Park.

First race post time is 12:40 p.m.

Race 6 is an entry-level allowance sprinting six furlongs that drew a field of eight older horses and 3-year-old gelding Raise a Speights, who beat his elders in a May 26 maiden special weight at Delaware Park. The 3-1 program favorite is Big Tall Dawg, returning to the dirt after finishing fourth as the favorite in a 5 ½-furlong turf sprint July 2 at Laurel.

Friday’s feature comes in Race 7, a second-level optional claiming allowance for fillies and mares 3 and up carded for 5 ½ furlongs on the grass. The field of 10 includes three entered for main track only as well as turf stakes winners Cavalier Cupid, Puppymonkeybaby and Epic Idea, the 2-1 morning line favorite.

Laurel will play host to 10 races on Saturday including allowance sprints for fillies and mares 3 and up in Race 8, scheduled for 5 ½ furlongs on the Dahlia turf course, and Race 9 sprinting six furlongs over the main track. Royal Engagement, stakes-placed on turf and all-weather surfaces, is entered to make her second start of the year in the eighth, while Acadian Girl chases her third straight win, fifth this year and eighth overall in the ninth.

Nominations Close Saturday for Pair of $100,000 Turf Stakes Aug. 6

Nominations to the $100,000 Bald Eagle Derby and $100,000 Searching, the final two stakes of Laurel Park’s summer meet, close Saturday, July 23.

The Bald Eagle Derby for 3-year-olds going 1 3/16 miles and the Searching for 3-year-old fillies at 1 1/16 miles, both scheduled for the turf, will be run Saturday, Aug. 6.

Both races were contested at 1 ½ miles in 2021. Indian Lake, trained by Jamie Ness, won the Bald Eagle Derby while the Searching was won by trainer Graham Motion’s Grade 3 winner Blame Debbie.

Free nominations can be made by emailing stakes coordinator Marie Kizenko at marie.kizenko@marylandracing.com or calling the racing office at 1-800-638-1859.

Laurel’s 37-day summer meet runs through Sunday, Aug. 21. It will host five stakes worth $400,000 in purses Saturday, July 30 led by the $100,000 Deputed Testamony for 3-year-olds and up at 1 1/8 miles.