The racing office carded the first test for two-year-old New Jersey-breds last Sunday (June 24) and it was Mo Mo Mo Mo who bested the other seven juveniles in the field. Moreover, he fought back after losing the lead around the far turn and showed some true grit while breaking his maiden in his first outing.

            “I’m very proud of him,” said trainer David Nunn. “I’ve always thought highly of him and expected good things from him, but you never know until the gate opens. He’s going to get a little vacation and I’m pointing him to the Jersey Futurity (to be added to the stakes schedule and be run here on October 6).”

            The Diane Boyken homebred is by Mo Mon and the Lyphard’s Ridge mare Silent Ridge. That makes him a half-brother to Paisley Park, who was trained by Joe Pierce, Jr. during her three-year career (2002-04) here and was always known for being extremely game.

            “That mare (Silent Ridge) did nothing but produce winners,” said Nunn, a former jockey who during his career galloped horses for Hall of Famers LeRoy Jolley and Mack Miller. Nunn also was the exercise rider for dual grade one winner Formal Gold, the winner of the 1997 Grade 2 Iselin Handicap, for longtime Monmouth horseman Bill Perry.

“In that Juvenile race that Mo Mo Mo Mo won, four of the eight horses in the field were sired by Mo Mon,” said Nunn. “Diane has bred a lot of nice horses. She had the stallion, but he died last year. I’m happy to have this horse in my barn.”

Nunn has entered Withgreatpleasure, the winner of her last two races in optional claiming allowance company at Parx and Belmont, in Saturday’s $75,000 Lighthouse Stakes for fillies and mares going one-mile-and-a-sixteenth on the main track.

When asked which of the horses he’s trained has been his best, he replied, “That’s easy. It’s her.”