Belmont Fuses Butch Goring's Love of Horse Racing and Hockey

When Belmont Park Arena opens for the 2021-22 hockey season, Butch Goring's two favorite sports will only be a few lengths away.
Goring's a hockey lifer, transitioning from player to coach to broadcaster in a career that started in 1969 and is still going strong. But there's another sport Goring's been heavily involved in at different points of his life and is still a passion today, horse racing.

The starting gate for Goring's fandom was Assiniboia Downs in Winnipeg, when he was 13 years old and accompanied his father and a family friend to the track. He was immediately hooked by the atmosphere and watching the sheer speed and power of the horses coming down the home stretch.
"My dad would give me the odd two-dollar bit to make a two-dollar bet and stuff like that, but I just liked the atmosphere," Goring said. "It was fun to see the horses and see if you could pick a winner. It just kind of grew on me a bit."
That's an understatement. When Goring cracked the NHL with the LA Kings in the 1969-70 season, he regularly went to the Santa Anita and Hollywood Park tracks, usually on Sundays when the Kings were off. Not long after he made his first foray into owning a race horse, more interested in rooting for his own steed than betting on someone else's.

"When I turned pro I eventually got into the buying part of it. Not so much trying to pick a winner, but have somebody win for me," Goring said. "My first horse I bought was a two-year old in Winnipeg and I think I paid $2,700 for it, obviously not an expensive horse, but that got me started."
Goring estimates that he owned, or partially owned, 20 horses from 1970-85, many with his friend Jed Cohen. His favorite was Ack Ack's Back, named after the Hall of Fame thoroughbred Ack Ack. According to
Ack Ack's Back's profile on Equibase
, the horse made 105 starts from 1976-86 winning 16 races. Goring estimates it was his most successful horse.
"It's a different rush than anything else I've gotten involved with in sports," Goring said. "If your horse] can come down that lane and he's battling to win the race, it doesn't matter if it's a cheap claimer, or a real expensive horse, it's so exciting. I had a number of races that were like that. It's a different sport, but for me it has tremendous excitement to it."
Goring is one of a few high-profile hockey players with ties to horse racing. NHL on NBC analyst Eddie Olczyk has been a part of NBC's Triple Crown coverage since 2014. Hall of Fame Bruins goalie Gerry Cheevers also owned horses around the same time as Goring. Cheevers owned a highly-regarded colt called Royal Ski,
[who reportedly pulled out of the 1977 Kentucky Derby due to an illness
. Seattle Slew, Goring's third favorite horse of all time, won the '77 Derby, en route to the Triple Crown.
Tweet from @91Butch: Horse racing nation talking about 4 all time favorites. 1 Secretariat 2. Cougar2 3. Seattle Slew and 4.Affirmed
Owning racehorses is an expensive endeavor, between feed bills, trainers, housing, entry fees, vet bills and more. Goring got out of the game of owning horses around the time he retired from playing hockey.
"No question, it's a sport of kings," Goring said. "I still really, really enjoy it."
Goring briefly tried his hand at breeding as his playing career wound down, but now he's settled back into just being an avid fan. Living on Long Island has given him close proximity to Belmont and he regularly attends the Stakes, making a point to go if the Triple Crown can be won. American Pharoah (2015) and Justify (2018) are the two most recent Triple Crown winners and Goring figures he still has his ticket from when Secretariat won the pinnacle of horse racing in 1973, leading the field at Belmont by 31 lengths.
"It's just a great day to spend horse racing and to see a classic couple of horses," Goring said of the Belmont Stakes.

This year's running will be a little different, with no fans in the stands and no Kentucky Derby or Preakness to set the stage for a Triple Crown winner, but Goring will be watching with a keen eye. When picking a horse, he's factoring in trainers, breeders, and how they run in the dirt at Belmont vs Churchill Downs. This year he's leaning towards Tiz The Law when the horses run on June 20.
"If I had a lot of insight I probably wouldn't be in the hockey game," Goring joked. "I'd be betting more horses!"
Soon enough, Butch will be able to do both in the same place.