O Donovan Rossa looks to be a tough customer in Saturday's Cox Ranch Distance Challenge Championship.

© Richard Chamberlain

By Richard Chamberlain

GRAND PRAIRIE, TX–OCTOBER 19, 2023– There's an old saying that love never fails. If so, O Donovan Rossa might bring home his first Grade 1 win Saturday evening in the $100,000-estimated Cox Ranch Distance Challenge Championship (G1) at Lone Star Park.

The 5-year-old chestnut gelding by Apollitical Jess has had a couple of Grade 1 chances before, having contested the 2022 Debbie Schauf Remington Park Invitational Championship at 440 yards and posting a second in this year's Remington Park Distance Championship going870 on June 3. Trained by Dee Keener and racing for Kelly Yother Equine LLC, O Donovan Rossa comes into the Distance Challenge off a 3 1/4- length score in the October 1 Will Rogers Distance Challenge (G3).

"This horse is special," says Nono Pulido, Keener's assistant trainer. "He's the soundest horse I've ever had. He's strong. He pulls up good, comes out of a race like it's nothing. He's the kind of horse that loves to run and loves his job."

Bred by J. Garvin Kelly of Bermuda Dunes, California, O Donovan Rossa is by the sire of earners of more than $64 million. Owned by Rancho El Cabresto Inc. of San Jacinto, California, the 16-year-old Apollitical Jess stands at Royal Vista Ranch LLC at Wayne, Oklahoma.

Along with full brother Party Politics, a multiple Grade 1-winning earner of more than $1 million, O Donovan Rossa is one of two stakes winners, 12 other winners and the earners of more than $1.8 from 16 starters out of the stakes-winning Country Chicks Man mare Shanachee ($123,938).

Opening his 2023 campaign after a three-month layoff, O Donovan Rossa ran seventh in the March 12 SLM Big Daddy Stakes at Remington. From four starts since, he's won three races, including the May 6 Pauls Valley Stakes (G2). With a speed index of 112 and earnings of $245,184, O Donovan Rossa has a career record of 31 – 10 (5) – 6 (2) – 3 (1).

It has taken a special touch to get him to where he is today.

"This horse didn't really like people," Pulido says. "He was kind of picky, didn't like people handling him, didn't like people even touching him. If someone else wants to work with him, he doesn't do real good. He's tough to move around. But with me – I don't know why, maybe it's because he knows me and he likes me – he's very calm. He's been with me three years, since he was a 2-year-old, so he's kind of grown up with me. With me, he's nice."

"He's kind tough to gallop because he really pulls on you," he continues. "He wants to go. He loves to run. He's good in the gate, doesn't have any problems. He knows his job.

"He didn't do too good when he was young, because he had a hard time at the beginning of a race," Pulido says. "He was strong, he was good – it looked like he was on springs – but just as he started to run, the race was over: 350, 400, even 440 weren't far enough. So we finally had the chance to try 870 and it looks like he's a top horse."

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