When you access your favorite streaming service such as Netflix or Hulu, you expect to find a blockbuster movie like “Barbie” or “Twister.”
Mega stars like Tom Cruise or Meryl Streep. Maybe “The Rock.”
But coming soon to your television or streaming device may be … Mike Repole?
Racetrack regulars may have noticed a filming crew shadowing the outspoken and always animated horse breeder, billionaire, philanthropist, business mogul, Queens native, social media darling, and self-appointed commissioner of the self-created National Thoroughbred Alliance.
Why?
Even while he is wearing all those hats, Mike Repole is going Hollywood.
Repole may be among the industry participants featured in an upcoming streaming series on horse racing, but he’s planning something much bigger with his own production team.
The camera crew is getting racetrack footage of Repole that is destined to become one of two entirely different entities.
“It’s either going to be a Netflix series or I spent $5 million on home movies for my daughter, Gioia,” Repole said. “It’s much more expensive now than when my mom would film us with the VHS camera when I was a kid.”
Gioia Repole holds up the Travers Stakes trophy at Saratoga Race Course
While time will tell if the final product is good enough—and Repole’s pockets are deep enough—to land the series a home on a major streaming service, racing’s most outspoken personality says he decided to take on the project as a way of presenting the positive side of horse racing.
“I want to have some positivity around this great sport. My goal is first to make sure racing survives for the next generation, and the second thing is to make it better for the next generation. That’s been my focus for the last 18 months: how to improve this game. I thought it was about embracing change but I’m finding out it’s about forcing change.
“I want this to be a thriving, growing sport. I’d like this sport to be No. 2 behind football. It can be bigger than baseball, or basketball, or hockey. There were 20 million people watching the Kentucky Derby. You don’t see those kind of numbers for the World Series or NBA Finals or Stanley Cup Finals. But we can’t do that when you have negative stories like the ’60 Minutes’ segment, or the ‘Broken Horses’ show that I think 12 people watched. We need a positive message.”
Repole said his series would be akin to what HBO Max does with the National Football League and its “Hard Knocks” series. The segments would feature Repole, his trainer Todd Pletcher, and top jockeys such as the Ortiz brothers, Jose and Irad Jr., in addition to equine stars such as his homebred champion and Travers Stakes (G1) winner Fierceness .
“Think of it as a ‘Hard Knocks’ on horse racing,” Repole said. “It will take horse racing fans behind the scenes like they have never been before. At the sales, at the barns in the morning with the workouts, what goes on before the race, how the owner feels before the race and after it. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. You never know what’s going to happen in this sport. This will be never-seen-before footage in horse racing, access to a top trainer and a top stable. Access to a team that works hard; the jockeys who are the best in the business.”
The star, of course, will be Repole, who has never shied away from controversy or a camera. He can be counted on to produce lively antics such as making the crowd laugh in the owners’ boxes at Saratoga Race Course—which included a Sheikh—during a back-and-forth with someone who was teasing him. Or falling into the arms of his wife, Maria, and daughter after Fierceness’ emotional Travers win.
Whether he gets an Emmy for the series or if it is aired only in his house is what remains to be seen.
“Some people sell the concept to Netflix and then Netflix funds it. I am funding it and we’ll see how happy I am with it when we are all done,” Repole said. “Selling it is more about finding the best platform for the sport. I fund the NTA. I fund (NTA executive director) Pat Cummings. Somebody has to step up to help the sport, and if this sport does not survive in five years, I am not going to have any regrets. This is who I am and what I am doing.”
