While you entry your favourite streaming service comparable to Netflix or Hulu, you look forward to finding a blockbuster film like “Barbie” or “Tornado.”
Mega stars like Tom Cruise or Meryl Streep. Possibly “The Rock.”
However coming quickly to your tv or streaming machine could also be … Mike Repole?
Racetrack regulars could have observed a filming crew shadowing the outspoken and all the time animated horse breeder, billionaire, philanthropist, enterprise mogul, Queens native, social media darling, and self-appointed commissioner of the self-created Nationwide Thoroughbred Alliance.
Why?
Even whereas he’s carrying all these hats, Mike Repole goes Hollywood.
Repole could also be among the many trade contributors featured in an upcoming streaming collection on horse racing, however he’s planning one thing a lot greater together with his personal manufacturing workforce.
The digital camera crew is getting racetrack footage of Repole that’s destined to turn out to be certainly one of two solely totally different entities.
“It’s both going to be a Netflix collection or I spent $5 million on residence motion pictures for my daughter, Gioia,” Repole stated. “It’s far more costly now than when my mother would movie us with the VHS digital camera once I was a child.”
Whereas time will inform if the ultimate product is nice sufficient – and Repole’s pockets are deep sufficient – to land the collection a house on a significant streaming service, racing’s most outspoken character says he determined to tackle the undertaking as a method of presenting the optimistic facet of horse racing.
“I need to have some positivity round this nice sport. My aim is first to verify racing survives for the following technology, and the second factor is to make it higher for the following technology. That’s been my focus for the final 18 months: enhance this recreation. I believed it was about embracing change however I’m discovering out it’s about forcing change.
“I would like this to be a thriving, rising sport. I’d like this sport to be No. 2 behind soccer. It may be greater than baseball, or basketball, or hockey. There have been 20 million folks watching the Kentucky Derby. You don’t see these form of numbers for the World Collection or NBA Finals or Stanley Cup Finals. However we are able to’t do this when you’ve unfavorable tales just like the ‘60 Minutes’ section, or the ‘Damaged Horses’ present that I feel 12 folks watched. We want a optimistic message.”
Repole stated his collection can be akin to what HBO Max does with the Nationwide Soccer League and its “Laborious Knocks” collection. The segments would characteristic Repole, his coach Todd Pletcher, and high jockeys such because the Ortiz brothers, Jose and Irad Jr., along with equine stars comparable to his homebred champion and DraftKings Travers Stakes winner Fierceness.
“Consider it as a ‘Laborious Knocks’ on horse racing,” Repole stated. “It would take horse racing followers behind the scenes like they’ve by no means been earlier than. On the gross sales, on the barns within the morning with the exercises, what goes on earlier than the race, how the proprietor feels earlier than the race and after it. The joys of victory and the agony of defeat. You by no means know what’s going to occur on this sport. This can be never-seen-before footage in horse racing, entry to a high coach and a high secure. Entry to a workforce that works arduous; the jockeys who’re the most effective within the enterprise.”
The star, after all, can be Repole, who has by no means shied away from controversy or a digital camera. He may be counted on to provide energetic antics comparable to making the group snigger within the house owners’ bins at Saratoga Race Course – which included a Sheikh – throughout a back-and-forth with somebody who was teasing him. Or falling into the arms of his spouse, Maria, and daughter after Fierceness’ emotional Travers win.
Whether or not he will get an Emmy for the collection or whether it is aired solely in his home is what stays to be seen.
“Some folks promote the idea to Netflix after which Netflix funds it. I’m funding it and we’ll see how blissful I’m with it after we are all executed,” Repole stated. “Promoting it’s extra about discovering the most effective platform for the game. I fund the NTA. I fund (NTA govt director) Pat Cummings. Anyone has to step as much as assist the game, and if this sport doesn’t survive in 5 years, I’m not going to have any regrets. That is who I’m and what I’m doing.”
