Swift Delivery, a 3-year-old racehorse co-owned by Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, finished a disappointing fifth in his first graded stakes race — the Ontario Derby at Woodbine on Saturday.
Kelce purchased an interest the horse in late August, shortly before the gelding finished an impressive second in the Toronto Cup at Canada’s premier horse track. The horse shares half a name with Kelce’s famous girlfriend, pop star Taylor Swift, who will perform a sextet of concerts at Toronto’s Rogers Centre next month as her Eras mega-tour draws to a close.
The setup for Saturday’s race was quite similar to what unfurled in the Toronto Cup, with Swift Delivery — the second pick on the morning line at 2-1, which are the odds he went off at — trailing the field through a respectable half-mile before slowly picking off competitors on the backstretch. He seemed poised to make a run at victory at the top of the homestretch, but he ran out of steam as the distance proved too much and the favorite, Dresden Row, prevailed.
Swift Delivery actually beat Dresden Row in the Aug. 31 Toronto Cup, and the former’s connections felt like Saturday’s extra distance — 1 1/8-mile, a half-furlong further than the horse’s prior race — would work in his favor. But whether it was the change in surface (turf to Tapeta) or the added distance, Swift Delivery wasn’t up to the task.
Perhaps a stern talking-to by Taylor, who never lays an egg when the lights get bright, is what this horse needs before he next approaches the starting gate.
