Mike Repole riding his hopes on Our Entourage for the Kentucky Derby
Owner Mike Repole is one of the most exciting and out spoken owner that you will ever come across, and last year on the Derby trail his two colt’s were making the news almost every day, and it looked as if those two will take the racing world by storm and
take the Kentucky Derby, and if Repole was lucky each horse would win at least 2 of the three Triple Crown race, and that could have been something.
Unfortunately, Repole’s biggest hope was his 2010 juvenile champion, Uncle Mo, and he was done for the Derby when he revealed symptoms of being suffering of a rear liver disease, and that ruled him out of the equation, and the other was Stay Thirsty, who
raced under the shadow of Uncle Mo, but squandered his only opportunity when he was without his star stable mate, but he finished an unplaced 12th.
Though, Repole has been busy preparing for this very moment this year, as he was a major player in the recent Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s select sale for two-year-olds, and previously in the Keeneland September yearling sale, but he doesn’t have that
fire power he had last year, hence stepping away from the spotlight.
“Last year was a special year. I wasn’t naïve about it even as I was going through it,” Repole said. “I knew it was a once in a lifetime type of year to have two of the top 20 3-year-old colts in the country. I was thankful and appreciative then, and knew
I may never ever get back to the Derby again. Looking back on it, even though I had a lot of fun going through the experience, it was pretty stressful.”
Losing promising colts like Overdriven and Giant Surprise through injuries, Mike Repole still has, Our Entourage, who still hasn’t won something of significance, but he is still a Repole owned colt under training of Todd Pletcher.
Without much graded stakes earnings, not at all for that matter, Our Entourage is pointed toward the Grade 3, $500,000 Illinois Derby at the Hawthorne race course, where he will be part of a large field and among sophomores, who will be looking to make their
bleak chances of a run in the Kentucky Derby brighter by winning the Illinois Derby.
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