Jayson Werth Talks Kentucky Derby, MLB's Torpedo Bats and More in B/R Interview

Jayson Werth is familiar with the highest-pressure situations from his 15-year career in Major League Baseball, but his most nerve-wracking moment in sports involved an event he wasn't physically competing in.

Werth will be featured in Netflix's upcoming documentary series Race for the Crown about the 2024 Triple Crown season (all six episodes release on April 22). While speaking to Bleacher Report, he explained that watching his horse, Dornoch, compete in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes channeled an unfamiliar feeling in him.

"It's like being a father of a kid that's playing, being the manager of a team that's playing," Werth told Bleacher Report. "All the pre-race stuff leading up to it is like you're having a full meltdown. Your skin doesn't feel right on your body. You're having a hard time breathing. Your necktie is way too tight. All that goes into it on the pre-race stuff up until they're going to the gate. When they were going to the gate at the Kentucky Derby, it takes forever to load the horses, and I was hyperventilating. I couldn't even breathe. I was never nervous in baseball. I didn't get nervous before playing big games, like the World Series. For me, the bigger the game, the calmer I was. This whole nerves thing is like some crazy drug I've never done. I'm not used to it, but when they leave the gate, that's the part that feels like you're playing again."

The nerves may have been fraying for Werth in the Belmont Stakes. He could only watch from the stands as Dornoch moved into the top spot coming down the final stretch before holding off Mindframe to win the final leg of the Triple Crown.

For Werth, the journey to owning race horses began out of a need to fill his competitive urges after retiring from baseball in 2018. He started by playing golf and noticed horse racing was frequently on in the clubhouse, even though it wasn't apparent to him right away that they were live events being broadcast on TV.

"I'm literally looking up at the television like, 'is this a rerun of the Kentucky Derby?' I had no idea that horses ran all day, every day all over the world," he explained. "I have no idea that you could run at Tampa Bay Downs on a Tuesday afternoon. I was totally clueless, so I was intrigued and all of a sudden they're all yelling and they win."

Werth said he would watch this "for months" every Tuesday, so he decided to start asking questions of his friend and longtime horse owner Rich Averill about racing before eventually landing "a leg" of a low-level claiming horse that is "a long way from the Kentucky Derby."

After developing a taste for it, Werth decided to jump all the way in by starting Two Eight Racing named for the jersey number he wore for most of his MLB career. He also started Icon Racing, a new syndicate to bring in his friends, family and colleagues to the sport.

The wager is paying off, as Werth's team will be represented at the Kentucky Derby again this year. Flying Mohawk was added to the lineup for Churchill Downs in what will be his first race on a dirt track.

Werth is still able to keep an eye on his previous job from time to time. While the torpedo bat has become all the rage in the early going so far this season, he noted there was a time when he was among a set of players who attempted to have their bats changed in such a way that would shift some of the weight from the end of the bat closer to the barrel only to be rebuffed by MLB:

"What I find interesting about this whole thing is, we know the sweet spot of the bat is down the barrel. We've all known this for a long time. And so I asked because it used to be the bat would taper where the fatter end was toward the end where it was above the sweet spot. I asked to get the sweet spot bigger and taper to the bottom, essentially what the torpedo bat is. And I got them to make the sweet spot the same size as the rest of the bat, and your bat got labeled as LDM, which meant low-density maple because it had to be a certain weight-to-length ratio because of the added barrel down toward the sweet spot. So I thought, 'let's make a bigger sweet spot,' and I wasn't alone, but they categorize those bats as LDM. And I said, 'well just take the weight off the end of the barrel and taper it into the end of the cup.' And I was told that you couldn't do that."

Werth did point out that he wasn't sure whether or not the league adjusted some its wording on what constitutes an approved bat in the last 10-15 years.

"I don't wanna hit the ball off the end of the bat anyway," he added. "I can't remember who told me that, but I don't think (torpedo bats) are an original idea, but it's original in the sense that it's being allowed now, so I don't know what happened. ... I don't think it's a bad idea because you wanna hit the ball on the sweet spot, so make the sweet spot the biggest part of the bat. It's really not an outrageous concept."

MLB did ban soft, low-density maple bats in an attempt to prevent potential injuries to players on the field, since they were lighter and would shatter easily, sending large pieces of wood flying in the air.

The ban was grandfathered in, so players who had been using low-density maple bats prior to the ban being implemented in 2010 were allowed to keep using them in games.

Even though there wouldn't seem to be any obvious connections between the two sports Werth has become so closely associated with over the course of his life, he has found ways to spot some of the parallels.

In particular, Werth highlighted the speed at which an individual play occurs in baseball can mirror that of a horse race.

"The bases are loaded and you're in the dugout, and your teammate's up (to bat). That's when you're like, 'come on,' and he hits the ball to the gap. And you're waving your guy from first around to win the game. That's what it feels like for two minutes. In a baseball game it takes eight seconds. But in a horse race, when they leave the gate, you got two minutes of that excitement.

For someone who experienced the highest of highs in his own athletic career, Werth has achieved the goal that was originally set out for himself of being able to recapture that feeling.

"Just an incredible experience, a life-changing experience at the Belmont to go to it, let alone win it," Werth said. "So after he won, now it's like this is incredible. I stood at the top of the mountain in baseball. I stood at the top of the mountain in horse racing. And I can tell you, it's the same feeling. The idea is to chase that. We want to give that experience to many other people, and people that aren't in the horse-racing industry, and to bring new owners and help grow this sport because I think it's so amazing."

The wager is paying off, as Werth's team will be represented at the Kentucky Derby again this year. Flying Mohawk was added to the lineup for Churchill Downs in what will be his first race on a dirt track.

Getting a taste of the Triple Crown last year has only strengthened Werth's resolve to get back in the winner circle on the grandest stage in horse racing.

"One thing I'll take away (from the Belmont win) is I wanna do it again," Werth said of Flying Mohawk's upcoming appearance in the Kentucky Derby. "Having a horse in the Kentucky Derby is maybe the most prestigious thing you can do in your life. It's why people spend millions of dollars a year chasing this. It's why people pay millions of dollars just to get a piece of the horse. This is so unexpected for us to do this not only once, but twice, so it's not lost on me. I know how tough winning is. I know what it means to play in the World Series. I played 15 years, I think I went to the playoffs 10 times. And I got to the World Series twice, and I won once. I know how hard it is. I know how special it is to win and what it means to the people around you, so it's not lost on me at all."

Flying Mohawk recently had a second-place finish at the Jeff Ruby Steaks on March 22. The three-year-old colt does have a win under his belt this year, defeating States' Rights on Jan. 22.

The 2025 Kentucky Derby will be held on May 3.