| PROFILES |
Mo Donegal, ridden by Joel Rosario, beats Early Voting by a neck to capture the Gr. 2 Wood Memorial Stakes (2022), earning 100 Kentucky Derby points.
JERRY CRAWFORD DONEGAL RACING - MO DONEGAL
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ith an old-school racing background from visits to Ak-Sar-Ben, a new-school expertise based on algorithms, and a unique approach to partnerships, Jerry Crawford has had amazing success with Donegal Racing. Mo Donegal, who bravely collared loose-on-the-lead Early Voting to win the Gr. 2 Wood Memorial by a neck and earn a starting spot in the Kentucky Derby, is his newest star. Mo Donegal will attempt to become Donegal’s seventh Gr. 1 stakes winner since it began in 2008 and improve on the thirdplace Kentucky Derby finishes by Donegal’s Paddy O’ Prado in 2010 and Dullahan in 2012. In 2015, Keen Ice finished seventh in the Derby, third in the Belmont Stakes and first in the Travers Stakes, when he defeated Triple Crown Champion American Pharoah in one of the Graveyard of Champions’ most stunning upsets. Jerry has also had success using algorithms to connect on 34 Pick Sixes, though none recently. “I think I jinxed myself,” he said. Most of the scores were with partners; and he calls one of them— his close friend Ray Smith—a “good handicapper.”
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TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 64
Jerry has been a practicing attorney for 47 years and Chairman of the Board of Trustees at his alma mater, McCallister College in St. Paul, Minnesota. He founded and owned a successful minor league basketball team, the Iowa Energy, which won the 2011 NBA Development League Finals, two games to one, over the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. The Minnesota Timberwolves bought the team in 2017 and renamed it the Iowa Wolves. Asked about his roots in horse racing, Crawford referenced AkSar-Ben, which is Nebraska spelled backwards. “It was magnificent; it was like a less well-heeled Saratoga. Big racing plant. Routinely drew 20,000 plus on the weekends. It was racing from yesteryear. Horses would run once a week. I enjoyed it immensely.” He said the inspiration for owning Thoroughbreds came from losing his Derby wagers every year: “My son, Conor and I—he was quite young—we were trying to figure out why we never won when we bet on the Kentucky Derby. We started with algorithms. What we discovered was we still couldn’t pick the winners. But if you choose one horse out of five, your odds get better.” In 2008, he decided that the horrible state of the economy was an opportunity. “When the stock market collapsed, people stopped buying cars, houses and race horses,” he said. “I told my wife Linda I was going to the yearling sale at Keeneland. I’m going to take $300,000 and buy a horse to run in the Triple Crown. She grudgingly signed off on it.” But instead of one horse, he bought eight. And instead of spending $300,000, it was $410,00. “I’m flying home in alimonyprevention mode,” he said. “But I had friends who had said they would go in with me. I found seven partners.”