have sporting blood
1. To have a natural love of sports or athletics. This town has sporting blood in its veins, and the people here will gather together with unmatched enthusiasm to support all of their local teams.
2. To have an adventurous, risk-taking, and/or thrill-seeking personality or disposition; to be highly competitive or ready to accept a challenge. You have to have sporting blood to make it in this sort of cutthroat business, but the rewards are all the higher for it. I'm not one to rise up to the challenges of bullies, but my brother Seamus has sporting blood and backs down from no one.