AMERICAN football star Travis Kelce has taken the plunge into racehorse ownership – with an appropriately named runner.
He has bought shares in exciting three-year-old Swift Delivery, who is named after his missus and billionaire pop megastar Taylor Swift.
The horse, who is trained by Mark Casse, won by a whopping 16 and a half lengths two starts ago and will run in the £70,000 Toronto Cup at Woodbine in Canada on Saturday.
He is co-owned by powerful Hollywood heavyweight Gary Barber and powerful US owners Team Valor and the Zoldan family – and now the Kansas City Chiefs tight end is a part-owner.
In May, the three-time Super Bowl winner attended the Kentucky Derby for the first time as a guest of the Zoldan family, who have a long-running relationship with Team Valor and are friends of Kelce’s.
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Team Valor chief Barry Irwin told Mirror Racing: “Travis Kelce is not just an athlete, he’s transcended that.
“He has been a guest host on Saturday Night Live. He’s just a multi-talented guy and very charismatic.
“So how the whole thing came about is through Bruce Zoldan, who is my most active and loyal client.
“He operates the largest retailer of recreational fireworks, Phantom Fireworks, in the US. His son Alex is a really close friend of Travis Kelce.
“Bruce attends the Kentucky Derby every year and he invited Travis Kelce this year and that’s where I met him. We talked about buying into one of the horses.
“I’d been trying to buy a horse but couldn’t find anything suitable. Then this one just happened to come along with the name Swift Delivery. It’s kind of an amazing coincidence.
“Travis is very popular, there is the connection with Taylor Swift who is as popular as it gets.
“I think it’s a great thing for racing because we need all the positive publicity we can get.”
He continued: “Mark Casse owned him with another client who got frustrated when he didn’t show anything. They put him in a digital sale and Gary Barber bought him for $55,000 (£41,000) and the first time he ran it, it won by 16 ½ lengths.
“We ran him at Woodbine last month and he won very well and this Saturday he is going to run in the Toronto Cup, his first black type race, going a mile at Woodbine.”
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