Gronk will be participating in a major American sporting event this year, after all.
No, Pats fans, your star tight end hasn’t announced that he’ll continue to play football. Instead, a horse named Gronkowki will run for the roses.
Via ESPN, Gronk the horse has qualified for the Kentucky Derby by winning the Burradon Stakes in England on Friday. Gronk, as it turns out, is a European horse, and the folks at Churchill Downs have decided for the first time to give one of the 20 spots in the Kentucky Derby to a horse from the Old World.
The owner of Gronk the horse, a Patriots fan, has said that the horse was named for Gronk not because he was ridden by Brandin Cooks after a touchdown last season but because the two Gronks have similar physical dimensions.
“I thought it would be an appropriate name for the horse, as he’s built much the same,” Kerri Radcliffe said last month.
So maybe Gronk the human will head to the Bluegrass State to watch Gronk the horse -- and maybe Gronk the human will whisper to Gronk the horse Gronk the human’s plans for 2018.