After years of questionable on-field decisions, tons of off-field scandals, and generally bad baseball-ing, it seems like things have changed after Steve Cohen stepped in to buy a majority stake of the team.

Having the majority of the stake of the team makes him the boss, and with new ownership behind the Mets, it is fair to expect some drastic changes in the team. However, in order to get a better idea about the future of the team, the first thing Mets fans should do is browse through their new owner’s history.

Who is Steve Cohen exactly?

Well, most people already know that Steve Cohen is a billionaire hedge fund guy who likes to spend his money on luxurious things like a $24 million penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park.

He is worth nearly $14 billion and his passion for baseball, and being a Mets fan led to him purchasing an 8% minority stake in the team in 2012. This was a tough year for Cohen since he was also investigated by the SEC and FBI several times and had to pay $1.8 billion in fines.

However, the thing that we are interested in now is his relationship with horse racing. Since he is a billionaire and likes sports, there is a good chance that Cohen already owns a couple of racehorses.

Steve Cohen’s Involvement in Horse Racing

The new Mets owner is deeply involved in horse racing for many years now. His involvement with the sport comes through a friendship and a working relationship with Sol Kumin. Steve Cohen has been one of the three investors in all the partnerships organized by Kumin, including Monomoy Stables, Head of Plains Partners, Sheep Pond Partners, and Madaket Stables.

Aside from having partners in his four stables, Kumin also typically buys horses in conjunction with other groups.

The biggest success in horse racing came with a horse named Justify, which was owned by WinStar Farm, China Horse Club, Starlight Racing, and Head of Plains Partners. Justify became the Triple Crown winner earning Cohen a lot of money as he was a part-owner of the horse.

Since Steve Cohen has been a partner with Kumin since 2014 in almost all of his projects, he has been a part of more than 60 grade 1 victories in prestigious horse races. Some of his most successful horses are Uni, Catholic Boy, British Idiom, Exaggerator, Whitmore, and Mind Your Biscuits.

Kumin added that Cohen is a very close friend to him and someone who appreciates horse racing and is involved with the sport for the fun of it.

Apart from Steve Cohen, other sports team owners partnered with Kumin’s four stables like Jim Pallotta, who sold his minority ownership of the Bolton Celtics of the National Basketball Association for close to $3 billion in 2019.

So, there is no doubt that Steve Cohen is a big horse racing enthusiast and likes to get involved with the sport, even though none of his horses figure among TwinSpires horse racing winners. Additionally, this is not the first time that the Mets are owned by horse racing enthusiasts.

In fact, when the Mets enjoyed the greatest success in their early days, the team was owned by a leading figure in Thoroughbred racing,  Joan Whitney Payson. The venerable owner operated the famed Greentree Stable and owned the team in 1969 when the Mets managed to win their first World Series.

Let’s hope that the new owner, who is also a horse racing enthusiast, will be able to push the team to reach new limits and climb higher on their National Championship history.

Photos by Blood Horse