Mike Repole eyes Kentucky Derby, Oaks after bringing UFL to Louisville

Mike Repole has accomplished something that few in the commonwealth have: get Louisville and Kentucky fans cheering with — not against — one another. "That's almost a miracle right there — right? " the 57-year-old billionaire entrepreneur from Queens, New York, told The Courier Journal on April 9, looking ahead to his first trip to Lynn Family Stadium for a Louisville Kings game as a co-owner of the United Football League .

Winning one of the big races at Churchill Downs on the first weekend of May has proven to be tougher than that. A lot tougher. Repole is 0 for 8 as an owner in the Kentucky Derby , with two likely favorites who failed to make the starting gate, and winless in the Kentucky Oaks .

He likes to tell people he's "fortunate" to even reach horse racing's biggest stage after falling in love with the sport as a teenager who would bus to Aqueduct . But, when you're armed with top contenders in the Derby and the Oaks like he is this year, it's impossible to resist the urge to sit back and wonder, "What if? " "It's nice unless you try to sleep at night, which I haven't been doing lately," Repole said.

Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher trains both of the horses in question: Renegade , who is second on the Derby points leaderboard after winning the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby on March 28; and Zany — whom Daily Racing Form dubbed the country's top 3-year-old filly entering the Grade 1 Central Bank Ashland Stakes on April 3. Pletcher delivered Repole his breakthrough moment as an owner in 2010, when Uncle Mo won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill by 4½ lengths — making him an early favorite for Derby 137. Twelve years later, they did it again with Forte at Keeneland .