Bobby Flay after winning the Juvenile Lawn | Breeders ‘Cup / Eclipse Sportswire
Via Joe Bianca
Still rising after a brilliant win at GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies with a quick finish Pizza Bianca (Fastnet Rock {Aus}), celebrity chef, restaurateur and owner/raider Bobby Flay joined the TDN Writers Room Presented by Keeneland Tuesday afternoon. Calling via Zoom as Green Team Guest of the Week.
Flay made a big splash at the Tattersalls October 2014 Sale when she went up to 1,250,000 guineas (approximately $2,12,050) to purchase a regal Galileo (Ire) regal hybrid daughter – item sold for the highest price in the Northern Hemisphere that year – his name was Hot White (Ire). But the dirty man never made it to the races. Flay could have cut her losses and sold the mare back at auction, but instead kept her for breeding, trusting her lineage, and she rewarded him with a winner. won the Breeders’ Cup as her first pony.
“She has a not so bright pedigree,” he said. “She is Galileo, she is half of Pour Moi (Montjeu {Ire}) who won the English Derby, and that is just the beginning of the genealogy. It continues for pages. It was a Coolmore family. And one thing about joining a Coolmore family, those people are so focused on making their family better and better, that they’re going to spend money on all that genealogy until the end of time. So I bet that. I took a leap of faith and it didn’t work out. The horse never ran, just not good enough. But I know I will keep this horse for the rest of her life. My feeling is that at some point, blood will appear. If that is good, then something must happen, directly or indirectly, that will help your family. But you have to be patient. You may actually have to invest more money to keep breeding, but at some point it will work. And I obviously didn’t expect it to work with the first pony, but it did. It’s all gravy from here on out. ”
Flay became a breakout celebrity and, therefore, the de facto ambassador of motorsport. He was asked about how receptive people in his world were to the sport and what could be done to introduce more potential owners and bettors to the game.
“There is only one way to do it. You have to expose them to it,” he said. “If you asked me for a recipe and I just gave you a piece of paper or asked you to download something from a website and you make it, that would be one way. But if I actually showed you how to do it, it would turn out differently and perhaps better, because I’m showing you, not telling you. The same goes for racing. If I told people about my experience, they would say, ‘Oh, that’s great.’ I take people to the big events, because I want them to see the best race, see the best horses and the biggest crowds, and then they get hooked. They were like, ‘I can’t believe I’ve never done this before.’ I hear that all the time. Every year, I bring about 25-30 people to Belmont Stakes. Half of them have never been in a race before. They become racing fans.”
Elsewhere in the show, also sponsored by Coolmore, Purebred West Point, XBTV, End lane and Legacy Bloodstock, the writers discussed what they learned from last week’s interview with Travis Tygart and Tessa Muir of USADA, debated whether racing without Lasix is still a big deal, and addressed the Potential remedy for the betting public in situations like the Breeders’ messy Cup Juvenile Turf. Click here to watch podcasts; Click here for the audio-only version or find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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