{"id":21933,"date":"2025-05-04T01:02:17","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T01:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/21933\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T01:02:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T01:02:17","slug":"panthers-xavier-legette-dreams-of-having-horse-in-kentucky-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/21933\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers’ Xavier Legette dreams of having horse in Kentucky Derby"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Best NFC 2025 NFL Draft picks<\/p>\n

USA TODAY’s Tyler Dragon breaks down which teams in the NFC drafted the best this year.<\/p>\n

Sports Seriously<\/p>\n

Carolina Panthers<\/a> wide receiver Xavier Legette<\/a> is attending the 2025 Kentucky Derby<\/a> as the NFL’s social media correspondent.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old was a logical choice for the role. He told FanDuel TV’s Kay Adams<\/a> he presently owns 14 horses and hopes to someday get one of them into “The Run for the Roses.”<\/p>\n

“I see it as a big investment and one day I want to get into the Derby,” Legette told Adams.<\/p>\n

Legette’s credits his father and uncle \u2013 who owns a horse stable in Mullings, South Carolina and would bring horses to visit his nephew for his birthday \u2013 for sparking interest in horses.<\/p>\n

Legette started riding horses at the age of 5. Doing so and visiting the horses became “an escape” for him as he grew up.<\/p>\n

“When I want to take my mind off football and just relax, I hunt and ride them horses,” Legette told ESPN in 2024<\/a>. “I gained energy from it early.”<\/p>\n

NFL POWER RANKINGS: Where all 32 teams stand following the 2025 draft<\/a><\/p>\n

Legette’s made his affinity for horses known during his rookie NFL season. Notably, he mimed riding a horse during his first-ever professional touchdown celebration, something he explained was to pay homage to his first horse, “Dolla Bill.”<\/p>\n

Legette continued to break out that celebration, making it his signature following scores during his first NFL season.<\/p>\n

That helped him to reach horse racing’s biggest stage on behalf of the NFL. Legette has used the opportunity to take in the magnitude of the event and prepare for a potential future competing at Churchill Downs.<\/p>\n

Of course, Legette has also taken time to spread love to the horses running in the races. He even got some of them to smile<\/a> for the cameras, as the NFL shared on its social media accounts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Best NFC 2025 NFL Draft picks USA TODAY’s Tyler Dragon breaks down which teams in the NFC drafted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2075],"tags":[821,247,265,822,235,260,2567,4485,4486,441,7,6911,820,830,248,267,88,6,245,537,236,530,9,266,776,1058,1505],"class_list":{"0":"post-21933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-panthers","8":"tag-affiliate","9":"tag-american","10":"tag-american-football","11":"tag-arts","12":"tag-carolina","13":"tag-carolina-panthers","14":"tag-carolinapanthers","15":"tag-celebrities","16":"tag-celebrities-u0026-entertainment-news","17":"tag-entertainment","18":"tag-football","19":"tag-legette","20":"tag-local","21":"tag-local-affiliate-arts-u0026-entertainment","22":"tag-national","23":"tag-national-sports","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-nfl","26":"tag-overall","27":"tag-overall-positive","28":"tag-panthers","29":"tag-positive","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-sports-news","32":"tag-u0026","33":"tag-xavier","34":"tag-xavier-legette"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114446870076431615","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}