TOBA June Member of the Month

“Mamba” was the nickname of late NBA legend Kobe Bryant. Now, an equine athlete and namesake is rising to the top of his own division. On the Kentucky Derby (G1) undercard, Remember Mamba ran second in the American Turf Stakes (G1T). Bred by Arthur Watson Jr.’s Burning Daylight Farms and November Hill, the bay colt is 3-for-4 in his career. This comes on the heels of his first graded stakes victory in the April 3 Transylvania Stakes (G3T) at Keeneland. The son of Kitten’s Joy rallied furiously to win by a half-length. Watson lives near Charlottesville, Va. His journey there took him across the Midwest and East Coast. “My father was President of NBC Sports and worked with the founders of the Breeders’ Cup in bringing the Breeders’ Cup to television,” he recalled. “And before that, he was a big horse fan. So, he had harness horses because we lived in New Jersey and so I was tangentially following it for years.” Eventually, life took him to Chicago. In his career, he found inspiration for his future in the pages of a book. Speaking of writer Jack London, Watson recalled, “He wrote a book called 'Burning Daylight' in which the character kind of left his business career, etc, to live on a ranch and I said, ‘That’s great.’ I used to actually have a sign in my office that said ‘burning daylight.’ Everybody always wanted to know what it was for, and I always just said, ‘I don't know; I don’t think we should be burning daylight.’ It’s actually meaning that I couldn’t wait to start burning daylight.” The phrase has two possible meanings—"don’t waste the time or slow down, it’s OK if you burn some daylight.” Watson said he holds to the latter interpretation. Watson added, “When I sold out, I went and shopped around for where I’d like to spend the rest of my life. I had a 5-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter, and I was traveling more than I thought was necessary, and I could see it was going to get more and more. So, I was motivated by other things as well but trying to figure out where to go.” Watson explained, “I wanted to live on a farm, and I didn’t want to spend my life driving a tractor through cornfields; since I was coming from Chicago, so cornfields was my reference point. I started looking around and went to several farms around the country. And after my inputs, my father was talking to D.G. Van Clief and he said he’d like Charlottesville. So, I came here, looked, and I said, ‘This is actually what I want to do.’” What brought him to Thoroughbreds? “I’d been in the business breeding horses, but more like for Maryland and sometimes New York since 1988, but got out in the early 2000s when it felt flooded, but as we got older, my sister-in-law was always interested so my wife suggested that the two of us do something and we started looking for broodmare prospects at the yearling sales.” They purchased Remember Mamba’s dam, Gizmo (by Uncle Mo), for $210,000 at the 2016 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. Asked if Gizmo was a standout physically, Watson replied, “The mare? Yes. I mean, pretty much it starts at the physical and then goes to the pedigrees. My sister-in-law and I probably fight more about pedigrees than physicals; physicals usually are agreed upon.” What stood out to him about Gizmo? He recalled, “I have to tell you, it’s a gestalt. It’s like, you’re looking and looking, and she looked like she wanted to be a racehorse.” Remembering the choice to breed her to Kitten’s Joy, Watson said, “I think that the main thing that we were looking for was something that would fit her and maybe balance her physically.” Gizmo produced a McKinzie filly in 2025 and has a Practical Joke foal this year; she’ll be bred to Oscar Performance, a son of Kitten’s Joy, for 2027. Watson boards his 10 mares—which he owns with his sister-in-law—at Heartwood and Runnymede Farms in Kentucky; in fact, Runnymede consigned Remember Mamba to the 2024 Keeneland September Yearling sale, where he sold for $270,000. As a foal, Watson noted, Remember Mamba “had a presence” about him. His co-breeder has watched his career enthusiastically. In particular, watching the Transylvania win was exciting. Watson recalled, “When he started coming, you could see he had plenty of energy.”