Long before Matthew DeSantis started working at the New York Racing Association and NYRA Bets as a content producer for their new YouTube channel, he was no stranger to analyzing complex, sometimes contradictory information. 

While studying political science in college with the goal of becoming a lawyer like his father, he took a class that changed his life.

“In college I read [Alexis de] Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy in America,’ and I developed a passion for studying political culture and behavior,” he said. “When I was a senior, I took a seminar on American political culture that changed my life.”

Goodbye, law school. Hello, graduate school.

DeSantis went on to earn a master’s degree and complete all the requirements for a doctorate except his dissertation. He taught and served as an administrator at several institutions of higher learning, most recently at Central Carolina Community College.

His life changed dramatically when COVID-19 hit in the winter of 2020, as it did for most of us.

But most of us didn’t have a fortuitous family connection to help forge a whole new life.

Drawn to horse racing since he was a child, DeSantis remembered that the big races were always on TV when he was little, and in 1988, his grandfather brought him back souvenirs after a trip to the Kentucky Derby — yes, the year that Winning Colors became the third filly to win the first leg of the Triple Crown. (Those must have been some souvenirs.)

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