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Gridiron warriors. Fraternity brothers. But horse racing magnates?
While this last descriptor might be a bit of hyperbole, the upcoming race at Santa Anita may very well propel five former Brown University football players to within striking distance of the Kentucky Derby.
The “Run for the Roses,” as the Derby is colloquially known, is the first jewel of thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown. Held annually — in non-COVID times — on the first Saturday of May, the race features 20 horses thundering around the track at Churchill Downs in hopes of snatching the multimillion-dollar purse. While some onlookers attend for the mint juleps and others to show off their favorite millinery, there is no mistaking what’s at stake. In the rarified air of this premier event, fortunes are won and lost in the course of just two minutes.
In a sport in which millionaire owners are a dime a dozen, a gaggle of ex-Division I football recruits may seem out of place. Now in their mid-20s, Eric Armagost, Dan Giovaccini, Reiley Higgins, Patrick O’Neill and Alex Quoyeser graduated from Brown in 2015.
As freshmen, each had made their way to the campus from across the United States, a transition of some note for O’Neill. “I went from Hawaii to Providence with no jacket, just flip-flops and board shorts.”
Preseason football’s grueling “two-a-days” began the next day. Rousted from sleep at 5:30…
