Kentucky Derby: Mike Repole, the maverick owner of favorite Renegade, is here to take on the establishment

“What are they going to do? Sue me? Fine me? Throw me out of the game? I’d be lucky if they did that. But I’m not gonna go away. I got in this to change the sport.”

Mike Repole, owner of Renegade, speaks to the media ahead of the running of the 152nd Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on April 30, 2026 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images)

(Alex Slitz via Getty Images)

How the renegade became a horseman

For those who aren’t familiar, here’s a quick refresher on how we got here: The son of working-class immigrants, he fell in love with horse racing as a teenager, sometimes skipping school to place bets at Aqueduct. After graduating from St. John’s, Repole began working in the beverage business, eventually leaving his executive sales job to start a company that put Smartwater and Vitaminwater on shelves across America.

His profile has only grown over the years. Bodyarmor became his next big beverage success. A few years ago, he got into the shoe and apparel game with No Bull. Making the UFL a hit is his newest venture. As a donor, he’s all-in on helping Rick Pitino get St. John’s back to the Final Four.

But his journey as a Thoroughbred owner started after he sold Glaceau to Coca-Cola for more than $4 billion in 2007, a venture that has brought him massive success and wins in some of America’s most prestigious races including the Travers, Breeders’ Cup Classic and Belmont Stakes.

His first big horse, Uncle Mo, was the Derby favorite in 2011 but scratched the morning of the race due to a gastrointestinal infection. Three years ago, he had the favorite again in Forte only for state veterinarians to scratch the horse due to a foot bruise (Repole disagreed with the decision). He’s come to the Derby with other good horses who simply did not show up on race day including Fierceness, who finished 15th as the 3-1 favorite two years ago.

“It’s the race globally that everyone sees and sees Mike Repole the loser,” he said. “Which is okay. I need some good motivation at times. But is it bad luck or is it being blessed? I know there’s a lot of people that would take 0-for-12 in the Derby because that means you got 12 good horses.”

Morning-line favorite Renegade runs on the track during the morning training for the 152nd Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on April 30, 2026 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

(Andy Lyons via Getty Images)

‘The lawsuit is ready’

As Repole’s profile has risen in horse racing, however, so has his frustration with the leadership of sport he believes is either in denial about or has become accepting of its erosion in the American zeitgeist.

Yes, the Kentucky Derby continues to grow as an Instagrammable cultural tentpole on every fan’s bucket list and a television property that draws roughly 20 million viewers annually. But with wagering dollars declining, racetracks closing and a foal crop that has dropped from about 50,000 in the mid-1980s to fewer than 17,000, Repole’s over-the-top brashness is in many ways the sport’s only counterbalance to its fundamental lack of urgency in trying to stop the slide for the other 364 days a year.

He sees sports ascending as a business, content breaking all-time highs — even his UFL games, he said, are drawing a million views — and wonders how a sport with horse racing’s excitement and natural beauty can allow itself to slide.

“It’s a shell of itself,” Repole said. “It’s sad. It hasn’t changed, it hasn’t evolved. The last sport that did that was boxing and the UFC came in and other martial arts and now it’s done. That will be us if we don’t make drastic change in the next three years to start this from scratch and rebuild the whole strategy from ownership to gambling to being a fan to being a trainer to being an employee to owning a track. There isn’t a part of this game right now that deserves more than a C (grade). It’s Ds or Fs or incompletes.

“And you know what? There’s a lot of people that hated me four years ago, like I was letting out some secret. That doesn’t happen anymore. Sometimes it takes one person to speak up, but the silent majority isn’t silent anymore.”

Silence won’t be an option for anyone if Repole follows through on filing what’s believed to be an antitrust suit against the Jockey Club, which began in the late 1800s as the nation’s official breeding registry but owns key, for-profit tentacles like Equibase, the sport’s official data hub.

Repole also claims there are conflicts of interest everywhere in horse racing’s various governing bodies like the Breeders’ Cup, National Thoroughbred Racing Association and HISA (Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority), which have significant power over regulatory issues and, he believes, stand in the way of progress.

“Chairman here, vice chairman there, trustee here, board member there,” he said. “The lawsuit is going to happen. Michael Jordan sued NASCAR. That’s how NASCAR moved. I’m convinced the Jockey Club is not going to move until someone punches them in the face and that’s what the lawsuit is.

“The lawsuit is ready. I could have dropped it this week, but you know what? I wanted to enjoy this with 75 friends and family members and I held back. But they’ve got a week after the Derby. My requests are not that crazy. Why don’t we take 10 of the highest influencers in the sport and put them all in a room for 48 hours and get a whiteboard and make things happen. When you don’t want to sit down and talk, that means you don’t want change.”

Not everyone in horse racing, of course, agrees with Repole’s vision or his tactics. He’s feuded on social media with reporters, racing officials and even other owners who believe he cares more about attention and personality feuds than actually modernizing the sport.

But he is right about two things. Thoroughbred owners, who generally belong to America’s wealthy class, mostly do this for entertainment and don’t want the headaches of trying to change the system. And second, mainstream media scrutiny on horse racing’s issues — like the Yahoo Sports story earlier this week on Computer Assisted Wagering – all but disappears after the Kentucky Derby.

“They know you guys are gonna be gone in a week,” Repole said. “They can duck you for a week. But they ain’t gonna duck me — and they know it.”

It sounds like something a renegade would say — and maybe a Kentucky Derby winner, too.