There are particular pure phenomena that occasionally happen however are well worth the wait. Halley’s Comet, vast ties, or the subsequent Audrey Hepburn come instantly to thoughts.
Likewise, there are Thoroughbreds who’ve made an influence with out clocking a lot time when it comes to billable hours, at the least within the afternoon. Private Ensign unfold 13 begins over three seasons and by no means went house with out the trophy. Ghostzapper was rationed like water in the Sahara, with just 11 starts in parts of four seasons, but by then he had already made his point.
After a 3-year-old campaign of nine starts in 2019, Mo Forza began pulling a pretty good imitation of Greta Garbo. Sightings became rare. He was rumored to be in witness protection, maybe the Foreign Legion.
Racetrackers would sit around the campfire trading stories of the Mo Forza they remembered—the colt who broke his maiden, then won the Qatar Twilight Derby (G2T) and Hollywood Derby (G1T) in a two-month burst—and if they had a turf miler, they kind of hoped he would stay away.
Then—boom!—Mo Forza would come roaring back, tail on fire, older, better, more determined than ever. He was never as good as he was in winning the 2020 Del Mar Mile (G2T), coming off seven months on the sidelines, or when he followed that with a race of similar pizzazz in the City of Hope Mile (G2T) six weeks later. That parlay put him on the threshold of a FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Mile Presented by PDJF (G1T) appearance at Keeneland, a race that appeared lifeless in his crosshairs. After which—poof!—he was gone once more.
There’s a proof in fact, and it’s pretty mundane. Shin splints and a mushy tissue problem stored Mo Forza away from the races at 2, and the occasional flare-up has put him on the shelf for a number of therapeutic months at a time over the previous two seasons.
“Brian Lynch had him at first, and I give him full credit score and gratitude for not happening with him like some might need accomplished,” mentioned Peter Miller, who has stabled Mo Forza primarily on the San Luis Rey Downs Coaching Middle, 30 miles northeast of Del Mar. “When he wants time, we give it to him. It is so simple as that.”
After one other a kind of lengthy breaks, Mo Forza reemerged this yr to win a few the same old races and current himself because the North American horse to beat within the Nov. 6 $2 million Breeders’ Cup Mile at Del Mar.
“Some issues are supposed to be,” Miller mentioned. “We needed to cease on him proper earlier than the Mile final yr. However I am not so certain he would have favored the softer turf at Keeneland anyway. Now he is on his house observe, over a course we all know he loves.”
WATCH: Miller Discusses Breeders’ Cup Starters, Feel-Good Story of Mo Forza
As usually occurs with marquee Thoroughbreds, Mo Forza comes with a backstory tangled with characters who defy typical expectations, starting with Barry Abrams, the all-purpose California horseman who died at age 66 in October of 2020 after battling most cancers to a draw greater than as soon as over a cruel 15 years of surgical procedures and coverings, characterised by his cussed refusal to steer clear of the sport he beloved.
Dyan Abrams, Barry’s spouse of 38 years, continues to race Mo Forza in partnership with Onofrio Pecoraro, a local of San Diego who embodies the thought of Saturday’s Mile being a Breeders’ Cup house recreation.
“My dad nonetheless lives in the home my great-grandfather inbuilt 1950,” Pecoraro mentioned at Del Mar this week, after watching Mo Forza breeze by way of his remaining Breeders’ Cup work. “I first met Barry when he was working together with his brother, David, placing in a flooring throughout the road from us in a constructing the place I labored cleansing up on the Wine Connection.”
Abrams, who already had loved success coaching Standardbreds, was between careers on the time however quickly on his solution to a fantastic run within the Thoroughbred recreation, whereas Pecoraro, simply 19 once they met, had his sights on a future with the household’s business portray enterprise. They each turned out OK.
Abrams received his share of races and a handful of graded stakes, however he left his deepest mark because the man who claimed Uncommon Warmth, a son of Nureyev, for $80,000 and helped flip him into California’s all-time main sire.
Mo Forza is a son of champion and Breeders’ Cup winner Uncle Mo out of the lightly-raced Inflamed, a daughter of Unusual Heat bred by Abrams and former California Horse Racing Board commissioner Madeline Auerbach and Sonny Pais. Inflamed’s female line tracks back to none other than Politely, the Amerigo mare who picked up the Bohemia Stable torch from Kelso in the late 1960s to do everything but win a championship. Among the mares Politely defeated were Gamely, Straight Deal, Lady Pitt, and Princessnesian.
Inflamed’s dam, Little Hottie, was bred by Burt Bacharach and purchased privately by Abrams and Auerbach from a subsequent owner at the end of her career. Inflamed’s full brother, named Burns, won the 2011 La Jolla Handicap (G2T) at Del Mar for Abrams and Auerbach, but then suffered a fatal injury while running in the Del Mar Derby (G2T) that summer.
By then, Pecoraro was investing in Thoroughbreds with Abrams and enjoying modest returns. Then came that day in the summer of 2016 when Pecoraro’s phone buzzed at a moment his mind was on anything but horses.
“I was with my mother at her dialysis,” Pecoraro said. “It was just an impulse to answer, because you worry whenever you see it’s your trainer calling. Barry was always good about saying right away that ‘everything’s OK at the barn.’ This time he wanted to know if I wanted to buy in on his Uncle Mo colt who was not much more than six weeks old. He said if I didn’t, he’d have to sell him outright, because he’d bring enough that he couldn’t afford to keep him. I didn’t need to be talked into it. We went 50-50.”
About two months later, on Sept. 23, 2016, Josephine Pecoraro died. Pecoraro’s father, Nick, a native of Sicily, is a neighborhood mainstay on the front porch of the family’s bright yellow house on India Street, the boulevard that snakes north to south through San Diego’s Little Italy. Pecoraro’s company offices are located adjacent to the home in which he was raised.
“My dad is not really into the horses,” Pecoraro said. “He’s very old-fashioned, doesn’t gamble at all. My mom, though, liked to send ten dollars with me to make a bet sometimes, and I almost got her to the races. I think back on losing her about the same time Mo Forza came into our lives. When we started to know what we had, Barry asked me to come up with a name. ‘Forza’ is ‘strong’ in Italian.”
In his most recent comeback races, Mo Forza won the Del Mar Mile by a head and the City of Hope Mile by a half-length over his arch-rival, Smooth Like Strait . The Miller crew has been diligent in monitoring any small change in the suspensory that kept their star out of the Breeders’ Cup last year, and so far he has shown nothing that would prevent him from producing another one of his relentless finishes. Whether or not it can be as effective against a field that includes quality Europeans like Space Blues , Mother Earth , and Pearls Galore , along with the usual tough contingent from the East and Midwest, remains up in the air.
“There have been considerable inquiries about him as a stallion,” Pecoraro said. “But all that is for after Saturday. Just having a shot at winning a Breeders’ Cup race is overwhelming enough. I wish Barry could have been here to see it, because Barry is the reason we’re here. Him and Mo Forza.”
