The Good Life, a promising 2-year-old colt co-owned by Shenendehowa High School graduate and current Detroit Pistons guard Kevin Hueter, will be out of action for the remainder of this year and won’t run in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
Elliott Walden, CEO of the WinStar Farm syndicate that owns The Good Life, announced the decision Tuesday in a post on X.
“The Good Life is not going to run again this year,” Walden wrote. “We were hoping to make the @BreedersCup, but he needs time. He will get 30 days in paddock and 30 days of light training. No surgeries. He will be back for his 3yo campaign.”
The Good Life, trained by Brad Cox, is 2-for-2 in his young racing career, with both of those wins coming this past summer at Saratoga Race Course.
The colt broke his maiden on July 18 with 3 ½-length win over a field that also included high-priced debutant Powerline. Cox then brought The Good Life back during Saratoga’s closing weekend, where he scored a front-running four-length victory in the Grade 1 Hopeful.
Both wins came with jockey Manny Franco, Saratoga’s leading jockey in 2026, in the saddle.
Huerter, 28, owns a percentage of The Good Life as a member of the WinStar partnership. The 2016 Shenendehowa graduate who is about to enter his ninth NBA season – and first full campaign with Detroit – made his first venture into horse racing ownership this year by joining WinStar. He owns a share of each horse in the stable’s 2026 2-year-old crop.
Hueter was in attendance at Saratoga for both of The Good Life’s wins this summer. He described the feeling of watching The Good Life’s first race in an interview with the Times Union prior to the Hopeful.
“I joked when it happened that I didn’t realize I’d be nervous,” Huerter said. “I had absolutely nothing to do with that horse winning that race. I was like anybody else just watching. And, you know, when they all got in the gate, there was definitely a different feeling of nervousness and anxiety that came over me.”
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This article originally published at Promising colt The Good Life, co-owned by NBA player Kevin Huerter, won’t race again in 2026.
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