On the earth in keeping with Mike Repole, everybody concerned in horse racing is a dummy. Besides him, Mike from Queens or the Commish, as a few of his followers on X name him.
Stuart S. Janney III, chairman of the nonprofit Jockey Membership, is clueless and tone deaf and has run the game into the bottom, Repole says. Churchill Downs Inc., which hosts the Kentucky Derby, is reasonable: The $5 million purse for America’s most well-known race must be way more, and the racetrack treats Repole and different house owners badly.
Overlook about John Stewart, a brand new proprietor bringing recent vitality and large cash into the sport. He’s “boastful, free spending” and such a rube that he has an “$8 haircut.”
All of the above, and lots of others, are amongst Repole’s frequent targets on social media and varied podcasts. Repole, a distinguished horse proprietor who made his fortune within the beverage trade, says he’s merely making an attempt to disrupt an trade (typically punctuated with profane Bronx cheers) that he likens to the Titanic heading inevitably right into a looming iceberg.
“You need actual otherwise you need faux??? You need loud otherwise you need quiet??? You need depth otherwise you need passive??? You need higher otherwise you need worse??? Love me or Hate me,” Repole posted on X in January, summarizing his credo for remaking the racehorse enterprise.
On Saturday, nonetheless, Repole will hit the mute button lengthy sufficient to look at his horse Fierceness compete within the one hundred and fiftieth working of the Kentucky Derby. The colt is the reigning 2-year-old champion and morning-line Derby favourite and maybe Repole’s greatest probability to win a race that has totally vexed him.
Formally, horses that he has owned are 0 for 7 within the Derby. Repole, nonetheless, insists his report is worse than that: Final yr, his colt Forte, additionally the morning-line favourite, was scratched by regulatory veterinarians who decided that he was not match sufficient to compete. In 2011, Repole’s colt Uncle Mo was a late scratch after coming down with a gastrointestinal an infection.
“I’m 0 for 9, although I’ve solely run seven occasions,” Repole instructed BloodHorse journal. “To me, once you scratch the morning-line favourite for the Derby, it’s a loss.”
Although Repole, 55, spoke to reporters at Churchill Downs this week, he declined to talk to The New York Instances, citing its protection final yr of Forte’s constructive check in New York for meloxicam, a potent nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug used to handle ache and swelling. New York regulators disqualified Forte from the Hopeful Stakes, which he gained earlier than the constructive check, and withheld the $165,000 first-place verify. Repole appealed, and the case is working its means by way of the state courtroom system.
Repole grew up in Center Village, Queens, and spent ample time on the rail at Aqueduct, the bluest collar of racetracks. He bought into the beverage enterprise, constructing first Vitaminwater after which BodyArmor sports activities drinks into manufacturers enticing sufficient for Coca-Cola to purchase them for practically $10 billion.
In January, Repole introduced that he was merging his sneaker and attire firm, Nobull, with TB12, the well being and vitamin firm owned by Tom Brady. A number of weeks later, Repole, a graduate of St. John’s College, promised Coach Rick Pitino’s males’s basketball program seven figures subsequent season to assist appeal to the nation’s greatest gamers to New York.
“Mike is clearly a genius in some ways,” stated Shannon Arvin, the chief govt at Keeneland, a racetrack and public sale firm primarily based in Lexington, Ky. “He’s been very profitable.”
Repole has spent greater than $300 million shopping for horses, a lot of it at Keeneland. He has gained dozens of the game’s most prestigious stakes races — together with the Belmont Stakes on Lengthy Island and the Travers in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. He has additionally made his frustration with the game loud and clear, likening it to a “board recreation with no directions.”
Since declaring himself commissioner, nonetheless, Repole has gotten extra private in his criticism. He railed in opposition to honoring the Jockey Membership’s Janney with an Eclipse Award of Advantage — for lifetime achievement within the sport — on the identical evening that Fierceness and different horses have been topped champions at horse racing’s equal of the Oscars.
Then he gave an unflattering evaluation from the viewers of Janney’s acceptance speech.
The Jockey Membership’s major responsibility is conserving the breed registry. It additionally funds analysis, lobbying and advertising efforts and was on the forefront of efforts to create the Horseracing Integrity and Security Authority, or HISA, the federal company that now regulates the game.
“We by no means heard from him once we went by way of that course of, which took greater than 5 or 6 years to get accomplished,” Janney stated of Repole. “My view is you get issues accomplished and let folks have a look at them and resolve how they really feel about it, however simply speaking about it doesn’t get issues accomplished.”
Stewart, who has a non-public fairness agency and has a colt named Only a Contact within the Derby, has participated in contentious give-and-takes with Repole on social media. He believes his fellow proprietor has good concepts. Repole says he desires to unite house owners, trainers and racetracks to tackle sport’s longstanding challenges, comparable to postcareer take care of horses and breeding practices. The issue, Stewart says, is in his supply.
“He’s making an attempt to behave just like the Elon Musk or Donald Trump of horse racing,” Stewart stated. “The game has sufficient issues, and we don’t want that.”
Win or lose on Saturday, Repole will proceed to attempt to impose his will on the game of horse racing. His worldview maybe was greatest demonstrated at a latest press gaggle within the barn space of Churchill Downs. Taking a FaceTime name from his daughter, Gioia, he brandished his cellphone for all to see and requested her about faculty.
“The A college students work for the C college students,” he instructed his daughter. “Keep in mind I instructed you that.”
