Basketball MVP Nikola Jokic paid a recent visit to Yonkers Raceway after his game against the Brooklyn Nets to show his support and love of horses.
A court “joker”
Nikola “The Joker” Jokic, born in Sombor, Serbia is a 28-year-old professional basketball player and center for the Denver Nuggets.
Young Nikola was introduced to basketball as a child living with is family in Serbia. By 2014, he declared for the NBA draft. He is now arguably the best center in the league. Not only does he hold the current MVP award, but he’s the first MVP center since Shaquille O’Neal in 2000.
He led his team to victory in game five of the NBA championship against the Miami Heat in June 2023. There, he displayed his dominance with 28 points and 16 rebounds.
A visit to Yonkers
Founded in 1899 as the Empire City Racetrack, MGM International acquired the Yonkers Raceway in 2019. The one-half-mile standardbred harness racing dirt track sits at the intersection of Central Park Avenue and Yonkers Avenue in South Yonkers.
It’s a well-known fact that Nikola loves horses and his love for them runs deep. He was eager to win the game against the Brooklyn Nets this past Friday night just so he could get back to Serbia by Sunday to watch his family’s horses race. However, it seems his impatience got the better of him. After the game, he drove 30+ minutes to visit Yonker’s to indulge himself in our own local horse racing.
Nikola braced the frigid New York cold to show support for the race and his love of horses. He even joked with the Nuggets President that he would ask to borrow the private plane just to make sure he would make it back home to Serbia by Sunday to watch his own family’s horses race.
