Bobby Flay looks forward to Pizza Bianca's Royal Ascot start

There are two things that keep Bobby Flay awake at night. One of them is entirely within his control. The other is a lifelong challenge that has been both rewarding and challenging and subject to the whims of fate.

“When I can’t sleep at night, I’m thinking of new recipes,” he said. “And I’m watching races.”

And analyzing. And handicapping. And strategizing. Come to think of it, those three actions might apply to both food and horses, the great passions in the life of this celebrity chef who doubles as a Thoroughbred breeder and owner.

Flay has combined the two for his trip this week to see his homebred filly Pizza Bianca, the winner of the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, race in the Group 1, £500,000 ($607,900) Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot. Early this week she was a 16-1 long shot with English bookmakers who made undefeated Inspiral, an English Group 1 winner, the 2-1 favorite for the one-turn turf mile that starts Friday at 11:20 a.m. EDT.

“We had always talked about Royal Ascot right after the Breeders’ Cup,” Flay, 57, told Horse Racing Nation. “I remember talking to (trainer) Christophe Clément the morning after. We were all so high from the exhilaration of the day before. I asked him, ‘How do you feel about Royal Ascot?’ He said, ‘I used to train for the Queen.’ So I said, ‘OK, we’re going to do this.’”

While the most prestigious week of racing in the world was the goal, there was the not-so-small matter of getting Pizza Bianca started on her 3-year-old season. Coming back from a 5 1/2-month break after the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar, the filly by Australia-bred stallion Fastnet Rock out of the Galileo broodmare White Hot was a beaten favorite in the April 24 running of the 1 1/16-mile Memories of Silver Stakes at Aqueduct.

“I think she was odds-on in her comeback race,” Flay said. He was right. Pizza Bianca was 9-10 when she finished second to the Chad Brown-trained filly Consumer Spending, who had finished sixth in their Breeders’ Cup matchup. “If you’re around horse racing for any amount of time, horses don’t know what their odds are. That doesn’t seem to matter.”

No wonder Flay was so nervous on Preakness day at Pimlico, where Pizza Bianca was odds-on again. This time she was 2-5 before the two-turn, one-mile Hilltop Stakes, which she confidently won by 1 3/4 lengths.

Or, to put it another way, whew.

“After she didn’t win the first race,” Flay said, “I talked to Christophe about the idea of maybe running four weeks later. And then have four weeks between the Hilltop at Pimlico and Royal Ascot. He said, ‘That sounds like a good idea.’ ”

But Flay, a native of New York, has been around the racing block enough to know nothing is automatic.

“People forget these horses are not machines,” he said. “They’re animals. They have good days and bad days. They have patterns. They have injuries that we might not see that may be nagging them a little bit. I mean, they’re athletes. So to see her perform so easily in such a relaxed way at Pimlico was a nice thing to see.”

Not that the race was without drama for Flay, who watched from a perch near the finish line on a steamy day in Baltimore as jockey José Ortiz made his move with Pizza Bianca.

“When she was coming around the far turn, I was like, OK, she’s pretty far back,” Flay said. “Then she just basically swallowed them up by the eighth pole. It was a really good feeling.”

Fast forward to Royal Ascot. Actually, make that a rewind to Flay’s first experience there in 2011. He and trainer Todd Pletcher went there, also with a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner. Coming off a seven-month break, More Than Real was a 12-1 long shot at post time. With standout France jockey Olivier Péslier riding, she finished 11th of 12 in the 2011 Coronation.

“Right off the bat she was up against it,” Flay said. “She had a couple things that were sort of nagging her after her Breeders’ Cup race. We weren’t able to get her a prep race. ... Then it was really, really boggy. They got hit with a lot of weather, which they do often. She had absolutely no interest in the racecourse. It was certainly not a good run.”

At least not for the horse. For Flay, it was indelibly grand, and it emboldened his desire to get back with a horse like Pizza Bianca.

“If you haven’t been to the Royal Ascot meeting, you might be missing the best Thoroughbred experience in the world,” he said. “It has class. It has history. If you have a horse and you’re in the royal enclosure, you have to wear a top hat and tails as a guy. The ladies have a lot of rules and regulations as to what the dresses have to be. And The Queen shows up every day (health permitting). It’s no joke. It’s a great, great experience.”

Even greater when Flay and his family and friends get to ride a horse, figuratively, to a front-row seat for the social event of the English year.

“That’s the thing I love about a horse like Pizza Bianca,” Flay said. “When you have a good one like this, they can take you to incredible experiences around the world."

Consider the source for that comment. A man whose international reputation has brought him James Beard and Emmy awards for his culinary and television work and two Breeders’ Cups as a horseman. He won a Belmont Stakes when he bought into 2006 winner Creator, and he tried again by getting a piece of the action last week on We the People. After all that, a Royal Ascot trophy might look good on Flay’s New York mantel.

But Flay took more pride in the fact that he bred Pizza Bianca. The key word there was bred. Her success may provide him his defining moments in 16 years as an owner – and more.

“Clearly, it’s the cherry on the top,” he said. “I have what I like to call a boutique breeding operation, which basically means it’s not that big. I always go for the top-level families in the stud book. That at the moment has proven to be clearly the most fun I’ve ever had.”

Not that he will stop finding more ways to have fun, especially in the field that brought him renown. His trip to England, then, will not be confined to the racecourse 30 miles west of London.

“We’re going to be a party of 10,” he said. “My daughter (TV journalist Sophie Flay) is coming from L.A. We’re going to Borough Market, which is an open-air market that is one of my favorite places. We’re going to spend the lunch hours there eating all kinds of different foods. They have the best fish and chips you can eat. Guys are shucking oysters to order, and there are great pasta places. And there’s the Indian food in London that, besides India, might be the best in the world.”

And then there is the epicurean experience at the track itself that Flay said “is like going to the best wedding you’ve ever been to.” That does not even take into account the parking lot, which turns into a high-end tailgate.

Oh, yes. There is the matter of the race itself. Flay said, “If you know me, you know I have looked at this 100,000 times.”

Although undefeated Inspiral may be the top choice with bookmakers, Flay said last month’s Irish 1,000 Guineas (G1) winner Homeless Songs looked like the favorite for Pizza Bianca’s date in the Coronation.

“She had an amazing run in the Irish Guineas,” Flay said. “She showed what you want in a race like this, which is an amazing turn of foot. Inspiral hasn’t run since October, but she’s got a lot of talent as well.”

Flay also offered a reminder that Pizza Bianca beat pacesetter Cachet, the 5-1 third choice Friday, in the Breeders’ Cup. “I think she’s going to be the one to catch,” Flay said.

The field also includes the undefeated Graham Motion-trained filly Spendarella, a 12-1 shot Friday who won the Appalachian (G2) in April at Keeneland. “She’ll be near the front as well, I’m sure,” Flay said. “A very, very talented filly.”

And about his filly Pizza Bianca?

“I can only hope that she can give us her best effort,” Flay said. “She won the Breeders’ Cup, and she was the best horse that day. Now there’s going to be 14 of them. The bottom line is you don’t know until you match up with these horses.”