As one of the best players on one of the NBA’s top teams, Rashard Lewis already was assured of a highly competitive playoff season. But for the Orlando Magic’s All-Star power forward, game-winning 3-pointers aren’t the only exciting events he can look forward to this spring.
Lewis and a group of childhood friends have partnered to purchase three Thoroughbreds that have already taken them to some of the biggest races in the sport of kings. Lewis said he didn’t know much about horse racing before being introduced to the sport last year, but now that it’s in his blood, it’s become a passion that likely will end up becoming his second career.
“It’s most definitely something I see myself involved in when I retire,” Lewis said. “With horseracing, even though I’m not actually competing myself, it’s still competing.”
Lewis shares ownership of his horses with a group of friends from Houston, where he went to high school. One of those friends is his business manager, Jake Ballis, a real estate developer whose father, John, owned stakes winners such as Groovy, Cutlass Reality and Goodbye Halo. Lewis’s other partners are Jake Ballis’s brother, Reed, an attorney, and brothers Will and Reagan Swinbank, who run a trash-collecting business.
Lewis said he was familiar with horses such as Kentucky Derby winners Street Sense and Big Brown, but it wasn’t until he saw his first race in person at Saratoga last summer that he began to fall in love with the sport. Prior to that race, Lewis and his friends had bought a Sky Mesa colt named Join in the Dance and sent him to trainer Todd Pletcher. The colt immediately rewarded the basketball star for his investment, winning by three lengths in a $74,000 maiden special weight race.
While at Saratoga, Lewis also met University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino, a Thoroughbred owner who told him how much fun he’s had in the sport over the years.
“I brought him to Saratoga, the best track you can go to and the best environment,” Jake Ballis said. “Join in the Dance broke his maiden there, so there was a lot of excitement. It got him hooked.”
Since then, Join in the Dance has provided plenty of excitement for Lewis and his friends. The 3-year-old colt led for most of the $300,000 Tampa Bay Derby (G3) at Tampa Bay Downs in March before finishing second to Musket Man by a neck as a 35-1 long shot. Join in the Dance also ran fifth last month in the $750,000 Blue Grass Stakes (G1) at Keeneland to boost his career earnings to $164,220 from eight starts, including one victory.
Ballis said Join in the Dance might run in the $1 million Preakness Stakes (G1) at Pimlico on May 16.
Lewis and his partners also own Beyond Our Reach, a 3-year-old, Irish-bred filly. She made her first three starts in Europe last year before making her U.S. debut in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita, where she finished last in a 12-horse field. Beyond Our Reach spent the winter preparing for her 3-year-old season at J.J. Pletcher’s Payton Training Center in Ocala.
Lewis said he was surprised that one of his horses made it to the sport’s biggest stage in his first year as an owner.
“It was a fun, but at the same time, it was strange because they say a lot of people would die to go to the Breeders’ Cup or the Kentucky Derby, and for me to be in my first year in the business and have a horse in the Breeders’ Cup, hopefully it’s a good sign that they’ll be good things to come,” he said. “But I know it’s very tough, and it’s not something that just happens normally. Some people never get a horse that’s good enough to run in a race like that.”
In addition, Lewis and his friends recently purchased a juvenile colt from the first crop of Florida-bred Limehouse. Ballis said the horse likely will be named Dream Shake in honor of Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon, a Hall-of-Fame basketball player with the Houston Rockets who invested in real estate deals with the Ballis family. The colt was purchased from Juvenal Diaz, who owns Omega Farm in Ocala.
Ballis said the colt likely will make his first start in May at Belmont Park, and plans call for all three of his group’s horses to compete at Saratoga this summer.
Though Lewis saw the Tampa Bay Derby in person, his busy schedule with the Magic prevents him from attending many of his horses’ races, including the Breeders’ Cup. Still, Ballis said the basketball star is far more than just a silent partner.
“He gets updates every day,” Ballis said. “He calls me about three times a day asking about the horses. He’s a lot more involved than anybody would ever think he is. It’s a lot of fun.”
For Lewis, success in horse racing has come even quicker than in basketball. After entering the 1998 NBA draft straight out of high school, Lewis watched as his hometown Rockets chose three players instead of him in the first round. Lewis was drafted by Seattle in the second round and averaged just 2.4 points during his rookie season with the SuperSonics.
Since then, Lewis has blossomed into one of the NBA’s best talents. He was named an All-Star for the second time this year, his second season with Orlando following nine years in Seattle. For his career, he’s averaged 16.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. This season, he’s partnered with All-Star center Dwight Howard to give Orlando one of the best front-court tandems in the league and a Southeast Division title.
Lewis joined the Magic in 2007 with a six-year, $118 million contract. That kind of money obviously can buy a lot of horses, but Ballis said he plans on keeping the stable small for the foreseeable future.
“We have three, and we’ll probably stick to three for a while,” he said. “That’s the plan right now, but it depends on how the other ones run. If we have success, I’m hoping to get a couple other basketball players involved and keep it a small group.”
Lewis said he also plans to take grow his stable slowly, though his interest in the sport has grown by leaps and bounds.
“I’ve gotten really into it,” he said. “When I watch ESPN, if I see ‘Horse’ at the bottom of the screen, I wait on it to see who they’re talking about and what they’re talking about. I’ve been reading more about it and looking at other horses that are running. I catch myself watching other horses.”
