Jayson Werth loved a 15-year profession in main league baseball, changing into a World Sequence champion with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008 and a MLB All-Star the next yr. Such accomplishments would appear tough to prime, however Werth says he has discovered one thing to match these highlights.
On June 8, the retired outfielder turned a co-owner in a traditional winner when he teamed with different companions to win the $2 million Belmont Stakes Introduced by NYRA Bets with Dornoch earlier than 50,000 followers at Saratoga Race Course.
“I’ll put this up there with something I’ve ever finished. That is the highest of sports activities,” stated the proprietor, whose secure identify is Two Eight Racing. “Horse racing is probably the most underrated sport there may be. That is as massive because it will get. The feelings you are feeling once you play in a playoff recreation, once you win a World Sequence recreation, it’s the prime of sports activities, and that is the place we’re at.”
“No person higher wake me up. I’ll be rattling mad. I’ll let you know proper now – simply let me maintain dreaming,” stated Randy Hill of R. A. Hill Steady, a accomplice with Werth.
Different house owners within the Danny Gargan-trained Good Magic colt embrace West Paces Racing, Belmar Racing and Breeding, and Pine Racing Stables. Together with Hill and Werth, this group partnered within the $325,000 Oracle Bloodstock buy.
Gargan was drawn to the Runnymede Farm-consigned colt on the Keeneland September Yearling Sale in 2022, and Werth recalled in the course of the Belmont Stakes press convention operating into Gargan on the bar at Keeneland in the course of the sale after Werth had been shopping for fillies on the sale.
Gargan and others stated, “It is best to get on in on this horse. It’s gonna be a Derby horse,” remembered Werth, who was new to the game on the time.
“I’m like, yeah,” Werth recalled, with a measure of disbelief.
“Proper, Jayson. They all the time say that,” chimed within the extra seasoned Hill.
Besides it proved true. Dornoch made it to this yr’s Kentucky Derby Introduced by Woodford Reserve, simply as his full brother Mage did in profitable the race a yr earlier in 2023.
Dornoch wouldn’t have the identical fortune, ending 10th after breaking poorly from the dreaded inside submit at Churchill Downs. That race adopted a disappointing Toyota Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland when he was fourth when ranking ways backfired.
He would have higher luck within the Belmont, urgent the tempo of Preakness Stakes winner Seize the Gray earlier than taking up a mile into the race. Handed in early stretch by runner-up Mindframe, he battled again to defeat him by a half-length underneath Luis Saez. Dornoch proved a resilient winner, much like his win within the 2023 Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct when he nipped Sierra Leone by a nostril.
Sierra Leone ran third within the Belmont Stakes after a runner-up end within the Kentucky Derby.
“You wish to see an incredible race? One of many biggest races I ever noticed was when he gained the Remsen,” Hill stated. “And I knew we have been going to win one in all these massive races.”
The house owners credited Gargan and his workforce with working to beat numerous small setbacks with Dornoch, together with 1 / 4 crack.
Werth in contrast the expertise of horse possession to rooting on a teammate in a key baseball recreation.
“You bought guys on base, and any person hits a double within the hole, and also you’re cheering in your man that’s making an attempt to attain from first. That’s form of like what it’s like, but it surely’s like two minutes, not 10 seconds or 4 seconds, no matter.”
Werth stated that whereas betting on horse racing is enjoyable, possession is “a recreation changer.”
“This sport is simply scratching the floor of what it may be and the place it may possibly go, and we have to get extra retired athletes on this recreation,” he stated.
