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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Hall of Fame trainer King Leatherbury, whose career spanned eight decades and included 52 training titles combined at Pimlico and Laurel, has passed away. He was 92 and died Tuesday at his home. “He's one of a kind, said one of his twin sons, Taylor Leatherbury. “There's never been a man more appropriately named than my father.” Born in Shady Side, Maryland, Leatherbury was raised on a farm where his father had horses. After graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in business administration, Leatherbury went to work on the track and won his first race in 1959 at Sunshine Park, now known as Tampa Bay Downs. But it was in Maryland that he made a name for himself. The quartet of Leatherbury, Grover “Bud” Delp, Richard Dutrow and John Tammaro Jr., also known as the “Big Four,” dominated the circuit throughout most of the seventies and eighties. Leatherbury's specialty was claiming horses. He had a knack for finding cheap horses with an upside, ones he thought he could maneuver up the claiming ladder. “My people would claim horses for $20,000, $10,000, $5,000 and buy a yearling for $22,000, something like that,” Leatherbury told Tom Pedulla in 2020. “I didn't have big clients who wanted to spend $1 million for a horse or $100,000 even.” Between 1972 and 1997, he won at least 100 races every year and from 1974 to 1984, his total hit 200 annually. He led all trainers in wins in 1977 and 1978, winning 322 in 1977 and 304 the next year. In addition to his training titles at the Maryland tracks, he won four titles at Delaware Park. “I was making good claims,” Leatherbury told Pedulla. “You have an owner and you start winning for them and they claim more horses.” With 6,508 career wins, he is the fifth winningest trainer of all time. Occasionally, Leatherbury would come up with a stakes horse. His Taking Risks won the GI Iselin Handicap and the GIII Baltimore Budweiser Breeders' Cup Handicap in 1994, and his Thirty Eight Go Go won eight stakes from 1987 through 1990. Leatherbury won the GI Hempstead Handicap with Catatonic in 1994. “Nobody in the history of racing…has done what he's done the last 25 years: that being training the horses from speed figures, the Racing Form, using top assistants and veterinarians,” Delp told turf writer Vinnie Perrone in the May 20, 1993 edition of The Washington Post. “Believe me, King Leatherbury can train any racehorse that ever lived, and train him to perfection.” Having compiled so many wins over so many years, Leatherbury had what some considered Hall of Fame-worthy credentials, but his status as a claiming trainer always seemed to hold him back. That all changed with the emergence of Ben's Cat, who took the veteran trainer on a ride beyond anything he had ever experienced before. Bred and owned by Leatherbury, Ben's Cat was by Parker's Storm Cat, who won only one of four career starts and earned $40,800. The dam was Twofox, a winner of 3 of 23 starts. Ben's Cat suffered a broken pelvis at 2 and did not race until his 4-year-old year in 2010, but what was to become was something right out of a storybook. A sprinter, Ben's Cat won 32 races, 26 of them stakes, and earned $2,643,782. He was named Maryland-bred Horse of the Year four times, from 2011 to 2014. A year before Ben's Cat retired, Leatherbury was inducted into the Hall of Fame. It was an honor, he said, that never would have happened if Ben's Cat had not come along. “The excuse (for why he had not been voted into the Hall of Fame) was years ago that Leatherbury wins a lot of races, but he doesn't perform at the top levels,” the trainer told Frank Vespe in 2017. “That was true, but I had to deal with the horses that I had. But Ben's Cat did perform at that level.” At age 11, Ben's Cat retired in 2017. For Leatherbury, Ben's Cat's accomplishments marked one last chance to enjoy the spotlight. The trainer, well into his eighties, saw his numbers dwindle down to a precious few. Between 2019 and 2021, the same trainer who had had as many as 365 wins in a single year, won just six races. He retired in 2023, starting just one horse that year. “I'm 87 years old, for God's sake. Nobody is going to give me horses,” he told the TDN in September, 2020 after winning his first race of the year, which marked the 62nd consecutive year he had at least one winner. “I feel perfectly good and healthy but when I visit my family plot down there, where my whole family has been buried, there's this little sign. It says, 'King Leatherbury, coming soon.'” he jokingly told the TDN. Leatherbury is also a member of the Anne Arundel County Hall of Fame and received a lifetime achievement award from the Maryland Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002. He served as president of both the Maryland Horse Breeders' Association and Maryland Million Ltd, and served on the board of directors at Timonium. He is honored each year at Laurel Park with the running of the King T. Leatherbury Stakes for 3-year-olds and up at 5 1/2 furlongs on the turf. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Linda Marie Heavener Leatherbury, 82; twin sons, Taylor and Todd, 58; and grandson Heavener, 18. The post Hall Of Fame Trainer King Leatherbury Passes At 92 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame's Win, Place, Show: The Annual Student Art Exhibition, presented by the New York Thoroughbred Breeding and Development Fund, will open to the public in the Museum's von Stade Gallery on Feb. 14. The exhibition, which will feature more than 60 works of art from Capital Region students in grades 3-7, will run through Mar. 15. A second exhibition for grades 8-12 will open on Mar. 28 and runs through Apr. 26. Submissions for the grades 8-12 show will be accepted through Mar. 15. Each entry must be accompanied by a submission form. To access, click here. Completed entries can then be dropped off at the Museum during normal operating hours. A panel of judges will select a first-, second-, and third-place winner from each exhibition. The first-place winner for each will receive a slate of prizes. All student artists, their families, and anyone in their party will receive complimentary admission to the Museum during the duration of the exhibition. Student artists and their families are invited to participate in a closing ceremony, held on the last day of each exhibition at 2 p.m., to enjoy complimentary refreshments courtesy of Stewart's Shops. The Museum will also host The Forgotten Foundation: How Black Equestrians Helped Build American Thoroughbred Racing, scheduled for Feb. 16 and Feb. 19. The seminar explores the impact and legacy of Black equestrians in American thoroughbred racing. From early trailblazers to Gilded Age legends to today's participants in the sport, this lecture traces the history of Black equestrians and their vital contributions to racing. The seminars will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 16 and at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday. The event is free for Museum members and is included with paid admission for non-members. As the seminar on the 19th takes place following regular Museum hours, paid guests will be given a voucher to visit the Museum at another date of their choosing–no pre-registration is required–simply arrive at the Museum, and a staff member will direct you to the lecture location. For more information, please visit www.racingmuseum.org. The post Win, Place, Show: The Annual Student Art Exhibition Opens Feb. 14 at the National Museum appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Byron King's Top 12 on the Road to the Kentucky Derby, presented by Spendthrift Farm.View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Penn National will raise purses by 5% for the 2026 racing season that begins Feb. 19 and lower takeout rates for the Trifecta and Superfecta.View the full article -
I think the racing industry in NZ along with the various clubs have no idea what attracts people to racing, simply because they never actually find out by asking. For me, it is seeing top horses race. The images of seeing the various greats over the last 50 years will remain with me forever. But that is just me. In recent times, because elsewhere I have learnt about the concept of finding value, it has been fuller and more competitive fields. But that would not apply to many of the people who go on course nowadays
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