Gronk now owns a stake in Kentucky Derby horse named Gronkowski

Rob Gronkowski is a two-time Super Bowl champion and the subject of Patriots trade rumors. Also: The namesake of a horse at the Kentucky Derby.

Update: Gronk, the human, has officially bought “substantial stake” in Gronkowski and released a very on brand statement:

"“This horse is a winner and I love a winner,” Gronk (the person) said. “When I heard about the racehorse being named after me, I started watching and got really stoked when he started winning. He’s won his last three races and is now headed to the Derby. I’m all in: Welcome to the Gronk Family, Gronkowski the Horse!I really can’t think of anything cooler than having a top-class thoroughbred named after me. Except maybe having him win the Derby."

Previously:

Gronk — the man, the myth, the legend — is now also a colt. Not a Colt, mind you, or a Bronco, for that matter, but a 3-year-old racing horse who just so happens to be racing at the Kentucky Derby next month.

NFL and TMZ fans know Rob Gronkowski as much for his larger-than-life personality and off-field antics as anything/everything he’s done in his eight seasons with the Patriots and two Super Bowl appearances. For one Patriots fan, the logical extension of that was to buy a race horse, name it after Gronk, qualify for the Kentucky Derby and hope to meet the team before Gronk’s traded (or retires?).

Naming a Kentucky Derby horse after Gronkowski, the NFL player, is not as unexpected as naming a Kentucky Derby horse after, say, Jose Mourinho. Gronk has at least frequented Millionaire’s Row in the past — the man loves a good party — whereas the Manchester United manager has never, to the best of our knowledge, even been to Kentucky.

Gronkowski the horse is an “exciting colt” — a 3-year-old, born in Kentucky, raised and trained in England, who qualified for the Derby by way of a new points system for European horses. An automatic bid, if you will. His odds are not great, widely considered to be the longest long shot at the race. (He “deserves to be 100-1 but will probably be closer to 25-1 due to his namesake.”)

Who would name a horse after Gronk? That would be American football fan and British national Kerri Radcliffe, who by the sound of the quotes she gave USA Today, may or may not have named the horse with the intent of meeting the Patriots:

"I’m hoping to meet Gronk. He’s definitely coming. The whole team is going. Gronk actually liked one of the Tweets I put up and he knows all about the horse. I’m definitely supposed to be meeting him on that Friday (before the race).I just hope he brings Mr. Brady."

(If you are wondering why, then, she didn’t name the horse Tom Brady, that is because Brady was already reserved in the British Horseracing Authority ledgers. Radcliffe has dibs on Belichick and Amendola too, as well as, apparently, other “Patriots-themed” names.)

And while Gronk (the horse) isn’t expected to make much noise on May 5 — Gronk (the human) will definitely make noise on his favorite holiday — his success in England has been enough to boost the NFL’s profile among English horse racing fans. Ah, yes, the much-elusive horse-racing/NFL fan crossover demographic.

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Whether Gronk is a Patriot on May 5 remains to be seen. Whether Gronk, the man, attends the Kentucky Derby in support of Gronk, the horse, remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure: Gronkowski is definitely (the name of) a (Kentucky-Derby-qualifying) colt.