Mara an Authentic Success Story in NFL, Horse Racing

It was back in 1986 that Timothy "Chris" Mara bought his first share of a Thoroughbred racehorse. He even convinced his mother, Ann, to buy a share, much to the chagrin of his father, Wellington Mara, who was the owner of the National Football League's New York Giants. "My dad kidded my mom about that," Chris Mara recalls. "He would ask her, 'Which part of the horse do you own?'" It actually didn't matter how big of a share Mrs. Mara owned, because that initial purchase, a Maryland-bred named Itchy Hooves, did not amount to much. In a 14-race career, the roan son of Christopher R. won just one race, with a single second and earnings of $13,688. "He didn't really run that well," Mara said. Considering Mara's humble beginnings in horse racing, what he has accomplished in the sport over the course of the last 34 years—particularly the last two years—is rather amazing. Perhaps not as amazing as what happened over the 95 years since Chris Mara's grandfather, Tim Mara, bought the Giants for $500 and put the franchise on the path to becoming a team worth more than $4 billion that the Mara family now co-owns with the Tisch family. But, nevertheless, pretty amazing in its own right. Over the course of the last three decades plus, aside from being a part of four Super Bowl wins with the Giants, through Starlight Racing Mara has owned a share of 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify as well as Authentic, who captured this year's Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) and Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) and rates as the favorite to be Horse of the Year. He has also been a part owner of eight Kentucky Derby starters in the last 10 years. "I've been lucky," Mara said. "People wait their whole life to get a horse in the Kentucky Derby and I've had a bunch of them and have won twice and had a Triple Crown winner." Through being a part of the Starlight Racing partnership that owned a share of Justify and Authentic—and the other six aforementioned Kentucky Derby starters—Mara rates as that unique person who can explain what it feels like to win a Super Bowl and the Triple Crown. "The thrill of winning both is actually similar in terms of the excitement," Mara said. "When you win at the highest level it is an unreal thrill." At the age of 63, Mara is the senior vice president of player personnel for the Giants, a job he has held since 2011. Working for the franchise as a scout and vice president for player evaluation before moving into his current position, he was a part of the team's Super Bowl wins in 1987, 1991, 2008, and 2012, which has put into perspective for him the role he plays as a member of a racing partnership. "In football there has been a greater sense of accomplishment because I've been able to be a part of four Super Bowl wins over the years," Mara said. "The only process I'm involved in in horse racing is writing the checks. I don't have much say in anything else, but it's all good." Jack Wolf, the founder and managing partner of Starlight Racing, has enjoyed having Mara in his circle of partners and understands quite well how the NFL executive views his role in racing. "I heard someone ask Chris what he adds to our partnership," Wolf said. "He laughed and told them 'Good luck and money.'" While he has a bigger hand in running the Giants, the simple act of being involved in a partnership is anything but a guarantee of success at the highest levels, no matter how much money comes into play. An investor needs to be in the right group at a highly opportune time—which certainly involves a measure of good luck—and that happened for Mara about 10 years ago when he became a partner in Starlight Racing. Mara's desire to be involved in horse racing is hardly surprising. It's in his pedigree. The money Tim Mara used to buy the Giants came from his day job as the bookmaker for the New York racetracks and the family became attached to the sport since then. As a child, Chris would relish trips to the racetrack with his father, who passed away in 2005, and as Chris grew older he was a frequent visitor at the nearby Thoroughbred and Harness racetracks in New York. To this day, each time he enters the second floor clubhouse dining room at Belmont Park, he proudly stops to gaze at a picture of his grandfather plying his trade at the racetrack. As a good luck charm, he also carries the button his grandfather wore in those days as a license to conduct his business. "Horse racing is in my blood," Chris Mara said. "It started with my grandfather and since I can remember, my dad was never around on the first Saturday in May. He missed a lot of First Communions." It was a natural extension that Mara would become involved in ownership, but finding a horse that becomes a classic-winning 3-year-old can be as difficult as drafting a future All-Pro football player. For some people, it's beyond their reach. Yet for Mara it all fell into place about 10 years ago when he was in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., playing in a golf tournament with his friend Lee Einsidler. Mara expressed to his buddy an interest in joining a high-profile partnership and was told the person he should meet was there: Jack Wolf. Mara listed to Wolf's pitch, liked it, and it didn't take long for him to write out his first check to Starlight and move light years away from the days of Itchy Hooves. "It took about a half-hour of talking and Chris was on board," Wolf said. "Over the years, he's been a lot of fun to be with and he has added a lot to the partnerships." Including good luck and money. Through Starlight, Mara not only achieved a life-long goal of owning a Kentucky Derby starter, he was treated to the sport's ultimate thrill. When Wolf bought a share of Justify's racing rights in 2018, it gave Mara and about 11 other Starlight partners the ride of their life in racing. For a group that also included WinStar Farm, China Horse Club, and Head of Plains Partners, Justify swept through the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes (G1), and Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets (G1) to become just the 13th Triple Crown winner. "The excitement is the key for me," Mara said. "I've been sitting through NFL games for my whole lifetime and they are three hours of torture for me. In horse racing it's only two minutes of torture, so there's a big difference with that, but there's just as much excitement for me in both sports." This year, Mara added a second Kentucky Derby victory, though this one, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, was a completely different experience. While Starlight bought into Justify after the son of Scat Daddy's racing career had started, Authentic was purchased for $350,000 as a yearling by an ownership group of Starlight, SF Racing, and Madaket Stables that teamed with a few high-profile bloodstock agents and trainer Bob Baffert in a consortium nicknamed "The Avengers." In June, Spendthrift Farm bought Authentic in a racing and breeding deal that should be worth in the neighborhood of $35 million if Authentic is voted Horse of the Year. "I've been getting some nice checks lately, which is great in this game," Mara said. There were extremely high hopes for Authentic in the 3-year-old classics, but when the Kentucky Derby moved from the first Saturday in May to the first Saturday in September due to the pandemic, safety protocols and the impending start of the NFL season kept Mara at home for a race that generated a Super Bowl-like celebration when Authentic beat Tiz the Law by 1 1/4 lengths. "Unfortunately I was not able to be at the race but I enjoyed it as much as I would have if I was there," Mara said. Two months later, Mara made it to Kentucky for the Breeders' Cup with another friend, current Iona College men's basketball coach Rick Pitino, who led the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville teams to national titles, to be on hand at Keeneland for what proved to be Authentic's final start, a 2 1/4-length victory in the Classic. "It was nice they let some people in but it was a bit strange," he said about the Breeders' Cup. "I went for the day to watch with my sidekick and golf partner Rick Pitino, which was interesting since he doesn't go to Kentucky much anymore. We had a good time. Authentic gave us a great win and it was a lot of fun." Though Mara has not been involved with a new Starlight partnership since 2018 and Authentic has been retired to stud at Spendthrift, he still owns a share in one of the colts bought in the same package of yearlings as Authentic. In Charlatan, owned by Starlight, Madaket Stables, SF Racing, Stonestreet Stables, Fred Hertrich III, John Fielding, and Golconda Stables, Mara will have a big rooting interest in a highly anticipated Dec. 26 showdown with Nashville in the Runhappy Malibu Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita Park. "That should be a great race," Mara said about the Malibu. "From the yearlings Starlight bought into in 2018, we had Eight Rings, who was sold as a stallion (to Ashford Stud) and we got a nice chunk of change for him, as well as Authentic. We also have Charlatan (who has a stud feal with Hill 'n' Dale) who is still going and we have some nice kickers in the stallion deal if he can win a grade 1 stakes." The Classic also kicked off a highly memorable November for Mara on the gridiron. After the Giants started the season 0-5 in their first season under head coach Joe Judge, the day after Authentic's Nov. 7 win at the World Championships, they beat Washington to start a four-game win streak that had them 5-8 and one-game out of first-place in the NFC East entering their Dec. 20 night game against Cleveland. "It was a memorable November. It's different every week in the NFL," said Mara, who has four children, Daniel, Conor, and the well-known actresses Kate Mara and Rooney Mara, with his wife, Kathleen McNulty Rooney. "We are in a rebuilding phase from a coaching and a player standpoint but I think the arrow is pointing up. This is a tough business but we feel we have a solid coaching staff and we're starting to put together the right pieces as far as the players go. Joe Judge was a guy no one knew much about, including myself, and I've been pleasantly surprised at his success. Now and hopefully going forward we can get a few playoff games in us. We'll have to see." Mara's workload also includes serving on the board of directors of the New York Racing Association. "Being on the NYRA board has helped me understand the business of horse racing a lot more than I did before," he said. "There are some really good people on that board and I just sit back and listen to them. I try to relate what our business in the NFL is like and some of it corresponds but a lot of it doesn't. I believe getting involved with FOX Sports on its television show has been really good for NYRA and it's been great during the pandemic because the handles are still pretty good, everything considered. Now with all of the different legalized betting it helps horse racing." NYRA CEO and president Dave O'Rourke said Mara brings to the NYRA board a needed dose of experience from someone heavily involved with one of the premier sports franchises. "Chris is a top NFL executive so he brings a massive amount of sports and entertainment expertise and a unique background to the board. He's been a huge supporter of our TV strategy. He's coming from the NFL and if anyone has done television well it's the NFL. Since the early days of our television show, he pushed for more television coverage and emphasized the importance of it," O'Rourke said. "As an owner and a fan he has a great enthusiasm for the sport. He's a fun guy when he's here and he has a horse running. His enthusiasm is contagious. For him to have horses like Authentic and Justify, it was fun to watch." While Mara has not been involved with any of the recent Starlight offerings, he joined up with a group of friends from the Winged Foot Golf Club—all of whom, like him, are Boston College graduates—in Curragh Stables. Fittingly, the stable's trainer, John Terranova II, also attended the Breeders' Cup. "I'll bet John is the only trainer who went to Boston College," Mara said. Mara also recently joined up with Billy Koch's Little Red Feather Racing and owns a share of Beer Can Man, a son of Can the Man who started his career at Indiana Grand and won the Cecil B. DeMille Stakes (G3T) at Del Mar in November. The 2-year-old, who is also owned by Sterling Stables, is expected to run Dec. 27 in the Eddie Logan Stakes at Santa Anita Park. "It's been great. Horse racing is really not different than in football in one regard," Mara said. "If you surround yourself with good people, good things will happen. Ten years ago I was fortunate enough to surround myself with the right people in horse racing through Starlight." From there, with the help of some luck and money, Chris Mara has been able to savor some experiences in racing that have been nothing short of "Super."