Search icon

Sport

05th Mar 2014

Sports stars who love their horses

From Wayne Rooney to Drew Brees, sports stars just love getting into the world of racing. It is safe to say the results are mixed though...

JOE

From Wayne Rooney to Drew Brees, sports stars just love getting into the world of racing. It is safe to say the results are mixed though…

While you don’t need to have a lot of money to get into the horse owning game, it is certainly no harm. So while us mere mortals can only dream of having multiple runners at Cheltenham like Michael O’Leary and JP McManus, some very well remunerated sports stars have dipped their toes into the sport of kings in recent years. And while some of these won’t have the lads at BetPack shaking in their boots, others have done a fair bit of damage to the bookies over the years

Michael Owen

Yes, the former England and Liverpool striker, now be best known for his sleep-inducing commentary role on BT Sport, is much more attention grabbing in racing circles. Owen now presides over a massive racing empire called Manor House Stables. The stables now has over 90 horses in training, under various owners, and Owen himself had 81 winners last season, and well over 60 so far this term.

His best known horse, Brown Panther, won the King George V Stakes at Ascot and finished eighth in last year’s Melbourne Cup.

Wayne Rooney

With a massive wedge being piled into his bank account every week by Manchester United, Rooney could afford to buy a gold-plated horse but they usually don’t run so well. Instead, Wazza invested in two horses, named Pippy and Switcharooney. We love the name of that second one.

Sadly, both horses were retired after managing just one win between them from 23 races. Another horse Rooney also bought, called Tomway, managed one win in six runs before being sold. Spending over £2o0,000 on the three horses including purchase price and training, Rooney won’t have felt it too hard in his pocket and with a newly announced wage increase, we expect he might dabble in equine matters again.

Lee Westwood

He might still be searching for Major success, something the lads at BetPack have probably made a fortune out of over the years, but the golfer’s charge Hoof It’s success on the track is probably some small consolation. Jointly owned by Westwood and golf management supremo Chubby Chandler, the seven-year-old gelding has won eight races thus far in its career.

Another horse owned by Westwood and Chandler, Rerouted, is best known for being Frankel’s pacemaker in the great’s epic 2000 Guineas win in 2011. Yeah, he wasn’t really needed…

Alex Ferguson

While it is probably best to act like his biography and gloss over the whole Rock of Gibraltar malarkey, Ferguson has turned his attention to the world of National Hunt racing in recent years. He has had runners at Cheltenham (What A Friend has ran at the Festival numerous times) and in the Grand National (Harry The Viking pulled up before Valentine’s in the 2013 running of the race) and his passion for racing is as genuine as his love of injury time, red wine and knocking teams off their perch.

He still dabbles in the Flat, and he had an Epsom Derby runner last year, Telescope, who had to withdraw before the race due to injury. His selections prove he can certainly pick them, so feel free to make your own David Moyes jokes right here.

Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Drew Brees

A horse called Siempre Mio managed to have not one, but two sets of very talented owners. Owned by LA Lakers duo Bryant and Gasol, the pair subsequently sold the horse to New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees for $12,500 on 2012. Brees is involved in a group of horse owners called Donkey Island Racing which owns seven or eight horses and he is probably the only Super Bowl MVP with an interest in the GGs.

Kevin Kilbane, John O’Shea and Stephen Hunt

The Irish team-mates once owned a horse called Honest Strike that won four of his 25 runs. A far bigger syndicate of Boys in Green, including the likes of Kevin Doyle, Shay Given and Damian Duff as well, owned a horse called St Devote which fared slightly better, garnering five wins from 25 runs.

Check out BetPack.com for the latest ahead of next week’s Cheltenham Festival.

MPU-Ruby-Yellow-Replace