Detroit Pistons guard and Shenendehowa High School graduate Kevin Huerter, second from left, stands in the Saratoga Race Course after The Good Life, with jockey Manny Franco, won a maiden special weight race in July.
Skip Dickstein
Detroit Pistons guard Kevin Huerter (27) goes to the basket past New Orleans Pelicans guard Dejounte Murray (5) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Detroit.
Duane Burleson/Associated Press
Kevin Huerter’s first memories at Saratoga Race Course are probably familiar ones to many who grew up in the Capital Region: Family outings in the backyard, claiming a picnic table or a prime spot for lawn chairs and digging into a cooler packed with snacks and drinks.
Nowadays, Huerter’s experience at the track is a little bit different.
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The Shenendehowa High School graduate, who is about a month away from embarking on training camp prior to his ninth NBA season – and first full campaign as a member of the Detroit Pistons – is in his first year as a horse racing owner and could be celebrating the final weekend at Saratoga with a win in the meet’s final Grade 1 race.
“It’s completely different,” said Huerter, who is a part-owner of The Good Life, the 7-2 second choice on the morning line for Sunday’s Hopeful Stakes.
Huerter got into ownership as part of the powerhouse WinStar Farm syndicate. Through “some mutual friends in the basketball world,” he got connected with Preston Troutt, a former college basketball player and the son of WinStar owner Kenny Troutt.
“He’s around my age, and he’s getting more and more into it and starting to work really closely with the farm,” Huerter said of Preston Troutt. “He’s a big basketball fan, and he’d heard that I lived in Saratoga; I was from this area with a lot of interest in the industry.
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“It was something we started to talk about, and I did my homework and figured out who WinStar was, and I knew it would be a really good thing for me to get involved with.”
In buying into the WinStar group, Huerter owns a share in each of the 28 horses that are members of the farm’s 2026 2-year-old crop.
“You’re basically buying into an entire draft class,” Huerter said.
So far, The Good Life is looking like WinStar’s No. 1 draft pick.
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The 2-year-old son of Life Is Good debuted on July 18 in a maiden special weight race at Saratoga headlined by the debut of Powerline, a much-hyped $1.8 million purchase from last year’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale.
Trained by Brad Cox, The Good Life powered to a 3 ½-length win under jockey Manny Franco, vaulting him into consideration for the Hopeful.
The Good Life was also the first horse Huerter owns a share in that he got to see race in person, and it sent him to the Saratoga winner’s circle on his first outing.
“I joked when it happened that I didn’t realize I’d be nervous,” Huerter said. “I had absolutely nothing to do with that horse winning that race. I was like anybody else just watching. And, you know, when they all got in the gate, there was definitely a different feeling of nervousness and anxiety that came over me.”
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In addition to The Good Life, the WinStar-owned Lifesong is also entered in the Hopeful for trainer Will Walden, giving Huerter a pair of opportunities in the eight-horse field.
Huerter isn’t the only pro athlete breaking into horse racing to get into the Saratoga winner’s circle this summer. On Travers Day, retired Super Bowl-winning quarterback Russell Wilson and his wife Ciara celebrated the victory of the first-ever starter for their Three Brand Racing enterprise when Club Reign scored an impressive maiden win of his own.
In fact, if things go well, The Good Life and Club Reign could put Huerter and Wilson head-to-head, either in stakes races later this fall or, potentially, on the 2027 Kentucky Derby trail.
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Meanwhile, as he awaits The Good Life’s run in the Hopeful, Huerter is also ramping up for his ninth NBA season. The 6-foot-7 guard was traded to the Pistons this past February and signed a three-year deal earlier this summer to return to Detroit.
“It’s been a long offseason. It’s felt long,” he said. “We have about a month to go, so we’re really going to ramp up here in the next couple weeks and get ready for training camp on the first (of October).”