Horses named for late NHLer Johnny Gaudreau set to face off at Belmont Park

Because he grew up playing hockey with and against Johnny Gaudreau in their teenage years, Vincent Conanan talks about the late NHL star plenty.He gets chills when old text messages from Gaudreau show up when he’s searching his phone.Conanan buys thoroughbred yearlings annually for his Next Level Stables, and after his young son kept asking about the player known as “Johnny Hockey,” he pledged to name a racehorse after Gaudreau.

After going to school in the Columbus, Ohio, area where Gaudreau played his final two seasons with the Blue Jackets, Devon Bradley of Bradley Thoroughbreds had the same idea.On Saturday, the horses — Johnny Hockey and Gaudreau — will run in the same race at Belmont Park.“Is that not bananas?” Bradley said.The winner out of the field of six in the Grade 1 Champagne qualifies for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile for 2-year-olds, the championship race that sometimes provides a sneak peek at the Kentucky Derby contenders the following spring.“Hopefully we can run 1-2 this weekend, either way,” Conanan said.“I know Johnny’s looking down and he sees it.”These two colts were born roughly a month apart in the winter of 2024.

Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew, died the night of Aug.29, 2024, when they were struck riding their bicycles near their hometown in New Jersey on the eve of their sister Katie’s wedding in a tragedy that transcended sports.Bradley was struck by all the great things that people said about Johnny and registered the names Johnny Hockey and Gaudreau with the Jockey Club.Watching U.S.

players at the Olympics bring Gaudreau’s children on to the ice and skate around with his No.13 jersey after winning gold in Milan was even more inspiration to use one of them.

When she forgot to pay to re-up after a year and went to name the son of Nyquist — also a hockey connection for Swedish player Gustav Nyquist — and Free Cover, she saw that Johnny Hockey was already taken.So, she went with Gaudreau for the strapp...