Former big leaguer will be 'nervous wreck' watching his horse in Kentucky Derby
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For former big leaguer Jayson Werth, owning a competitive racehorse is a lot like playing in the Majors -- with one big exception.
¡°I never stressed out, I never worried about one [baseball] game as long as I lived,¡± Werth said Wednesday in an appearance on MLB Network. ¡°Coming into a horse race, it¡¯s like, I¡¯m a nervous wreck.¡±
Werth, 44, is especially anxious this week because the horse he co-owns, Dornoch, is set to participate in the Kentucky Derby -- the first leg of horse racing¡¯s Triple Crown -- on Saturday. Dornoch will be looking to follow in the footsteps of his full brother, Mage, who won the Kentucky Derby a year ago.
Over 15 seasons in the Majors, Werth hit 229 homers, appeared in 63 postseason games and won a World Series title with the Phillies in 2008. But from a competitive standpoint, he said he gets just as much out of co-owning Dornoch as he did from playing baseball at the highest level.
"It's tough to beat, man, it's an adrenaline rush like never before," said Werth, who first got into horse racing in 2021, four years after his MLB career ended. "I compare it really to winning championships, to winning divisions, to winning postseason games. It is the most underrated sport on the planet, bar none."