Nova Rags Latest Star for Longtime Owner-Breeder Shanley
At 0h01, on March 26, 2021 • By GULFSTREAM PARK
His biggest success stories in parts of five decades owning and breeding Thoroughbreds have come on the grass, but Mike Shanley has a budding dirt star on his hands that just may well be the best horse he’s had in nearly 20 years. Maybe ever.
“I hope so,” Shanley said. “We’ll see more on Saturday.”
Shanley’s stakes-winning homebred Nova Rags, trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, will face the biggest test of his young career in the $750,000 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park.
The 1 1/8-mile Derby for 3-year-olds headlines a blockbuster program featuring 10 stakes, six graded, worth $1.85 million in purses. In its first 69 runnings, the Derby has produced a remarkable 60 Triple Crown race winners, the most recent being 2020 Belmont (G1) hero Tiz the Law.
Shanley would like to add Nova Rags’ name to that list but, in keeping with a career spent in law as a real estate attorney and judge as well as his long association with racing, he matches that optimism with an equal dose of reality. He has never run a horse in the Triple Crown.
“We’re obviously very excited with what he’s done so far and looking forward to the Florida Derby. It’s certainly a big step up, but Bill Mott feels comfortable with it and that’s how we’re going into it,” Shanley said. “Really all the credit goes to Bill and [son and assistant] Riley and the Mott team for bringing him along to this point.”
Nova Rags was a maiden special weight winner in his debut last October at Belmont Park, then ran fourth as the third choice in a field of seven in the Nashua (G3) at Aqueduct to cap his juvenile campaign.
By 2012 Belmont winner Union Rags out of the mare Wishful Splendor, Nova Rags has run twice at 3, both at Tampa Bay Downs, winning the seven-furlong Pasco Jan. 16 and finishing second by a length to stablemate Candy Man Rocket in the Sam F. Davis (G3) Feb. 6.
