Celebrity-backed Run Fast Racing using music stars to draw younger fans into horse racing

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Editor’s note: Follow along with the Times Union’s live coverage of today’s Belmont Stakes Day at Saratoga Race Course.

Start spreading the news, because Run Fast Racing is hoping to put a brand-new spin on the Belmont Stakes.

Founded by music manager Adam Kluger and backed by rappers Lil Wayne and Lil Yachty, as well as Puerto Rican singer/songwriter Rauw Alejandro, the ownership group that boasts of allowing fans to become co-owners with celebrities is headed to Saratoga Race Course for Saturday’s Belmont, having recently purchased a stake in longshot Vitruvian Man.

They’re bringing the party with them, Kluger said, as Lil Yachty is set to fly in to be part of the festivities.

“We’re going to have a good time,” Kluger said. “It was my 40th birthday on Tuesday, and I didn’t celebrate yet. I’m going to have a good time out there.”

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Kluger, a lifelong horse racing fan who was once named one of the 30 most influential people in the music industry under the age of 30 by Forbes, said he conceived of the idea for Run Fast Racing about three years ago as a way to entice young people to engage with the sport.

He wanted to find a way for the industry to break what he called a “terrible, untrue stigma about horse racing that kind of makes it synonymous with a 65-year-old compulsive gambler smoking a Marlboro Red, drinking a Bud Heavy, yelling at a simulcast screen.”

“It’s not that at all,” he said. “It’s fantastic, it’s steeped in tradition and it’s beautiful.”

Kluger said his aim was to find “off-center celebrities” that wouldn’t necessarily be associated with horse racing. After a lot of work, he settled on the trio that he felt would work best.

“Rauw Alejandro grew up on the racetrack with his grandfather. Went every weekend,” Kluger said. “Yachty, who I used to manage, I brought him to his first race, he won by a nose with Listenupshance, and now he’s hooked. Like, he’s watching the races on his phone when he’s on tour. And Wayne is a big gambler, he loves gambling on anything, and he understands the sport in general.”

Big-name owners are certainly nothing new in horse racing, nor are owners attempting to reach out to a new generation of fans. Griffin Johnson, a prominent influencer, made waves in 2025 when he purchased a stake in Sandman, who ran in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, is a presence in and around Saratoga throughout the summer and got into the ownership game with his Go Go Greys Stables.

Kluger and Run Fast Racing are attempting to take that to the next level with a business plan that allows subscribers to “rub shoulders with the stars” as co-owners.

For $100 a month, Run Fast Racing subscribers get an ownership stake in the group’s entire stable, get access to the owner’s box and exclusive events, and are paid out directly any time one of the stable’s horses wins.

Through the Run Fast Racing app, which launched five weeks ago, subscribers can also provide input on horse claims and purchases, race entries and jockey decisions.

“I think for us, it was a matter of baiting young people with vanity,” Kluger said. “It’s just a matter of taking the drastic steps to try and get young people into it, and if they can’t get into it this way, they ain’t getting into it, because this is the best possible opportunity for anyone to get involved in the sport.”

Vitruvian Man, co-owned by Glenn Sorgenstein and Run Fast Racing, is entered in the 2026 Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course. (Provided by Run Fast Racing)

A meeting with Southern California-based owner and breeder Glenn Sorgenstein at the home of one-time Santa Anita Park CEO Mark Verge eventually led to Run Fast Racing buying into the Doug O’Neill-trained Vitruvian Man and taking their VIP party to the Belmont.

“He said, ‘Adam, I would never do this, but I’m going to let you buy into this horse because I believe in what you’re doing, and I think it’s good for racing,'” Kluger said. “Really, all credit to him. He’s letting us take it and run with it.”

Kluger admitted that Vitruvian Man is an outsider in the Belmont, but with a chance of rain on Saturday, he’s already visualizing a scene similar to when Calvin Borel rode longshot Mine That Bird through the slop at Churchill Downs to win the 2009 Kentucky Derby.

“Win or lose,” he said, “we already won this. It’s about getting across that anybody could become a co-owner of this horse all the way up until the minute the race goes off. For $100, you could own a Triple Crown horse and get paid out a piece of $200,000 if the horse wins – and you own 19 other horses that run every weekend with an open bar, celebrities, parties, you get paid every time.

“Like, how could you not want to do this, right?”

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This article originally published at Celebrity-backed Run Fast Racing using music stars to draw younger fans into horse racing.

‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’

‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com ’