When it comes to former footballers or managers owning racehorses, often the most-talked about are, naturally, Michael Owen and Sir Alex Ferguson.
Both are horseracing aficionados, with Owen owning his own successful stables while Ferguson famously fell out with John Magnier, a major shareholder in Manchester United, in 2002, surrounding the ownership of 2002 European Horse of the Year, Rock of Gibraltar.
However, racehorse ownership doesn't come much stranger than when former Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Werder Bremen striker Claudio Pizarro and Joey Barton once owned a horse together, naming him Crying Lightning after the first single from the Arctic Monkeys' third album, Humbug.
Confirming to FourFourTwo that they did share dual-ownership of the racehorse, Pizarro explains how the partnership came about.
"Joey had the same racing manager as me and that’s how I was introduced to him," Pizarro explains to FFT. "We met and just thought, ‘Let’s have a horse together!’
"We don’t have it anymore but it was called Crying Lightning.
"I love horses. I owned quite a lot back home in Peru and liked to name them after German footballers or cities: Don Jupp, Uli Hoeness and Müller... Gerd, not Thomas!"
Indeed, Pizarro reportedly owns more than 50 racehorses in South America, regularly attending meets since his retirement from professional football in 2020.
While Barton and Pizarro never played at the same club as each other - Pizarro only spent one season in England with Chelsea in 2007/08 before returning to Germany - Crying Lightning competed 13 times, winning on three occasions and finishing in the top-three on a further two.
Crying Lightning's last race came at Tampa Bay Downs racecourse in Florida, in February 2012.
Pizarro reportedly owns more than 50 racehorses in South America, while Barton has also had a number of other horses named after songs - most notably, My Propeller, another Arctic Monkeys number, and Hand in Glove, a single from The Smiths.
