Parker has also worked with France Galop and racing broadcaster Equidia to promote the sport to new audiences. He explained that part of his goal was to make racing feel less like an inaccessible world reserved for extremely wealthy insiders.
Then he bought a Normandy stud farm.
Because apparently owning the horses was not enough.
Rashard Lewis
Rashard Lewis did not ease gently into Thoroughbred ownership. His first major racing partnership produced a Kentucky Derby starter.
Lewis, a two-time NBA All-Star who later won a championship with Miami, entered racing with longtime friend Jake Ballis. Their first horse, Join in the Dance, developed into a legitimate three-year-old and qualified for the 2009 Kentucky Derby.
The colt even led during portions of the race before finishing seventh behind 50-1 winner Mine That Bird. Churchill Downs’ official Derby records list Lewis among Join in the Dance’s owners.
That would have been enough for most first-time owners.
Lewis kept going.
He later co-owned Cigar Street, a talented son of Street Sense who became a multiple stakes winner and developed into a Breeders’ Cup Classic contender. Lewis stated that making the Derby with his first horse gave him “horse fever,” and he subsequently became interested not only in racing but also breeding and bloodstock.
Bowie himself
Sam Bowie knows something about being compared with elite athletes.
He was selected second in the famous 1984 NBA Draft, one spot before Michael Jordan. Horse racing has been considerably kinder to his legacy.
Bowie became a longtime Standardbred owner and found an exceptional horse in pacing mare Hot Mess Express. As a three-year-old in 2021, she won 13 of 16 starts and earned more than $650,000, including victories in major stakes such as the Mistletoe Shalee and Nadia Lobell.
Bowie has spoken about the similarity between basketball players and racehorses: both are athletes with individual personalities, preparation requirements, and physical limits. His involvement has given him particular appreciation for everything that happens before a horse appears behind the starting gate.
Nicolas Batum
Nicolas Batum followed his longtime French national-team colleague Tony Parker into racing, although his involvement eventually took a slightly different direction.
France Galop granted Batum an owner’s license in 2021, complete with his own registered racing colors. Later that year, he and Parker jointly purchased Domaine de Quétiéville, an 80-hectare Thoroughbred stud farm in Normandy. Contemporary reports described both players as sufficiently serious about racing to move beyond simply buying shares in individual horses.
The partnership changed in 2026. Batum sold his stake in the company operating the stud to Parker, although The Team reported that he retained his 49 percent interest in the separate company holding the property itself. The same report noted that Batum still held approval as a racehorse owner but did not currently own horses.
Yes, there aren’t many NBA stars who became full-on horse racing investors, but those that did become ones are quite passionate about the sport. This proves that horse racing is truly a global sport that knows nothing about boundaries.