It will be a big week for Mike Repole, who will be trying to win the GI Travers Stakes for the third time, with Renegade (Into Mischief), a horse he co-owns with Robert and Lawana Low. The Travers has been on his mind, but so have the many problems the sport has–issues that Repole will never stop speaking up about. The controversial but always entertaining owner joined this week's TDN Writers' Room Podcast presented by Keeneland to discuss the Travers and his beefs with the sport and its leaders. Repole was the Gainesway Guest of the Week.A favorite target of his has been HISA, and he's not happy about what he sees as an inadequate job when it comes to investigating the Marshall Gramm scandal.“One of the things (HISA CEO) Lisa Lazarus has said is that Marshall has to repay the cost of the investigation,” Repole said. “I guessed that the cost was going to be a couple million dollars. It was $80,000. How deep can they really go for $80,000? I spent $80,000 to have someone find two emails for me. So $80,000, that's not going to tell us what happened. Do we really think Marshall was the only one that had access to that vet information? Marshall's an idiot. Marshall did a bad thing. Before that, he was a well-respected Jockey Club member.”Repole has also been a vocal critic of The Jockey Club and its former chairman Stuart Janney. In 2024, Janney was honored with the Eclipse Award of Merit. Repole called on Janney to give back his Eclipse Award.“The Jockey Club forced HISA upon us,” Repole said. “In typical Jockey Club fashion, they forced it upon us. They did a victory lap and they gave Stuart Janney an Eclipse Award. Can we get that back, by the way? Can we get that back? Just give it back.”Repole is a billionaire but he comes from a modest background and was raised in Queens by a mother and father who were both blue-collar workers. He says that despite his wealth and because of his background, he still identifies with the “little guy” in racing and worries how hard it has become for that faction of racing to survive economically.“My dad was a waiter born in France and my mom was a seamstress,” he said. “I didn't come over here on the Mayflower. I know that I've had tremendous success and people say, 'He's a billionaire, what does he have to worry about?' I've got a heart, man, and I really care. People come up to me, young fans, young trainers, gamblers, old timers. They say, 'Mike, you're the only one fighting for the little guy.' And you know what? I'm still always going to be Mike from Queens. But I really need the journalists in this game and other trainers and bigger entities to stand up and help me.”And, yes, he did have a few things to say about Renegade.“He may be the favorite at post time or the co-favorite,” Repole said. “It's going to be a great rematch between Golden Tempo and Renegade. There are eight other good horses that can win the race. We all know that. It's just that with the news over the last two or three weeks, I'm not as excited as I'd usually be. I hope the fans don't feel that way.”The “Fastest Horse of the Week” was GI Pacific Classic winner and 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' Knightsbridge (Nyquist), who earned a 104 Beyer figure. The Fastest Horse of the Week is sponsored by WinStar Farm, the home of the outstanding stallion Life Is Good.Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the PHBA, 1/ST TV, the KTOB and West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Randy Moss, Bill Finley, and Zoe Cadman discussed the scintillating performance by Knightsbridge in the Pacific Classic, which led to an interesting debate: which Breeders' Cup race will he run in? Cadman and Finley predicted he would go in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, while Moss thought the choice would be the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. They also dissected the news that Marshall Gramm had accepted a provisional suspension from HISA and gave their picks for the Travers Stakes, the GI H. Allen Jerkens Stakes and the GI Forego Stakes.Click here to listen to the podcast and here to view it. The post Mike Repole Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.