If you’ve watched enough Major League Baseball, you’ve surely seen ‘Marlins Man.’ His bright orange Miami garb is pretty hard to miss when he’s perched directly behind home plate – especially during non-Marlins games. The racehorse owner’s apparel is much more subdued when he was at the track this past weekend, as he hoped to let his stock provide the bravado.
Marlins Man, whose real name is Laurence Leavy, donned dark attire when he took in the races at Gulfstream Park this past Saturday (December 3), but if you looked closely enough, you’d have noticed the subtle Marlins logo on his polo shirt.
“It’s the first time in four years that I’ve shown up at a sporting event not dressed in orange,” Leavy told the Miami Herald on Saturday. “I’m not Batman today. I’m his alter ego, Bruce Wayne.”
Leavy went on to say, “Whenever I wear orange and I go out, I get mobbed everywhere I go, so I really don’t have that much fun just being me. I wanted to come here and have fun.”
Leavy is known in Thoroughbred racing circles for his ‘Starship Stable’ of racing stock. And if you were wondering, yes, the ‘Starship’ is a reference to Star Trek, as Leavy is a huge ‘Trekkie.’
His love for the iconic television and movie enterprise clearly comes out via his stable name, but Leavy will tell you straight up that his first love is horse racing.
“It’s my favourite sport,” Leavy stated. “You know why? Here’s why. I can’t control the result of a baseball game.
“But here, I control the result. If I make the right decision and breed the right sire to the right mare, I can have a really good horse.”
The Miami Herald piece states that Leavy once had 150 horses, but is currently down to 75, with 20 in training. Twenty mares are currently at his Ocala breeding farm, along with roughly 35 weanlings and yearlings.
But don’t ask Leavy about how his charge Starship Tribbles ran at Gulfstream this past Saturday – he finished sixth – because Leavy may go all ‘Donald Trump’ on you.
“He should have won the race at 15-to-1,” Leavy was quoted as saying. “I fired the jockey after that. I said to the trainer, ‘I’m Donald Trump. He’s fired.’ ”
(With files from the Miami Herald)