sporting blood

Idioms  

1. Willingness to take risks, as in His sporting blood won't let him stay away from the races. This idiom uses sporting in the sense of “associated with gambling.”

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Example Sentences

He had sporting blood, though not of cricket's grass-and-sunshine variety.

From The Guardian • Apr. 13, 2011

New York's fastest society embraced him, because, unlike his father, he was a sporting blood.

From Time Magazine Archive

Many owners and trainers, wondering out loud if either Warren Wright or Ben Jones has any sporting blood in his system, argue that a horse can prove his greatness only under high weight.

From Time Magazine Archive

He was regarded during this period as an ineffectual student, a boy of vague intents, a sporting blood.

From Time Magazine Archive

That raised his sporting blood, and he climbed up to the platform and pulled out a roll of yellow boys that would choke a dog and peeled off twenty centuries.

From Side Show Studies by Herford, Oliver