TDN Podcast Q&A: King Leatherbury

[Wandering Eyes]

King T. Leatherbury is a horse racing legend, but not in the manner of a Bob Baffert or a Wayne Lukas. Leatherbury has been grinding it out since 1958, primarily with claiming horses, but the 85-year-old trainer has been so good at what he does that he’s the fifth winningest trainer of all time in North America and he is in the Horse Racing Hall of Fame. Leatherbury was a recent guest on the Thoroughbred Daily News podcast, brought to you by Taylor Made. Excepts from that podcast appear below.

TDN: According to a recent articles, you’re down to two horses. You’re going to give both the winter off and take some time off for yourself. We also see that Laurel has announced it has named a stakes race in your honor. While that’s obviously something you’re thrilled about, it has people asking questions. What is your future? What about retirement?

KL: Everyone says I’m retiring, so to answer I thought I’d start off with a joke. The doctor is telling the guy that he’s in good shape at 50 years old. The guy says, ‘Who says I’m 50? I’m 60.’ He said, ‘Well, you are in good shape. How old was your father when he died?’ He said, ‘Who says he’s dead?’ He said, ‘He’s 82 and doing well.’ He said, ‘Good heavens. Well, how old was your grandfather when he died?’ He said, ‘Who said he died? He’s 102 years old. In fact, he’s getting married tomorrow.’ Then the guy says, ‘Good gosh, why would a man 102 years old want to get married?’ He said, ‘Who says he wants to?’ I haven’t announced that I am retiring. The thing is, rumors are going around because I’m dwindling down on horses. I was down to five, then I was down to three, and then two. We sent those two a couple of days ago back to the farm and we’ll pick them up later this year. I wanted to give them a break. So, that’s it. I’m a horse trainer with no horses to train. Right now, we’re just waiting and in February, in the middle of February, we’ll pick up our turf horses. We also have some turf horses on the farm.

TDN: King, like most horse trainers, I’m guessing that you probably haven’t had many days off over the last 60 years. Perhaps none. What do you think about the down time? How are you going to fill your day? Are you looking forward to it? Are you not looking forward to it?

KL: No, I’m not particularly looking forward to it, but I’ll just do what comes up. I can just work around the house and certainly I’ll continue to go to the races many days. I do enjoy that, that’s what got me into the game. I’ll enjoy going to the races and watching other peoples’ horses run. Then I’ll catch up on some work around the house.

TDN: It’s not just you, a lot of trainers, a lot of fellow members of the Hall of Fame, have had the same sort of problem at some point in their career, usually around their mid-70s or so. People just seem to lose confidence in them. Is this just a horse racing problem? Is it a societal problem? Why do you think people are so easy to give up on the King Leatherburys of the world.

KL: It’s a natural thing. Just like with any sports teams–look at the football and basketball coaches–if they don’t win then they’re always looking to fire the coach. People have got to make a change when they’re not winning. You do hit slumps and when I didn’t hit slumps is when I had a lot of claiming owners, and I had a lot of claiming horses. With those, as they go, you replace them. They’re easy to replace and so you can continue a higher rate of winning than you can with the homebreds.

TDN: You bred, trained and owned Ben’s Cat, who was probably the best horse you ever trained and gave your career a huge lift only a few years ago. This might be hard to put into words but what did he mean to your life and to your career?

KL: Oh, my golly. He’s the one who pushed me into the Hall of Fame because he was competing on the high level, which means a lot to the Hall of Fame people that vote. You win cheap races, they don’t count much, but the good ones bring recognition to you.

TDN: He started his career in 2010, ran 63 times, won 32 races, 26 of them stakes races, he earned $2.6 million dollars. He won the Jim McKay Turf Sprint five times. King, in an era where horses have become soft and aren’t durable like they were in the glory days of the ’60s when you were winning those 350 races a year, did you ever think you’d see another like this, that some horse like this could even come around and do what he did?

KL: No. It’s just luck. It’s just luck and percentages. The more horses you deal with the better chance you have to come up with something. They only come around every once in a great while. So if you try something many times, you’ve got a chance to hit something like that. You try to use some laws of probability on different things and you know something is going to hit here and there. But no, you can’t just plan out something that comes along and turns out like that. You can plan it, but it very seldom will work out the way you think.

TDN: Unfortunately, the story of Ben’s Cat didn’t end well. Just 24 days after his last race, he’s retired, sent to what is going to be a great home and he passes away from colic. That must’ve been just heartbreaking for you.

KL: It was devastating. It was really sad. He made it through all those years of racing to stay sound and then that happened. It was a tragic ending for a remarkable horse.

TDN: You were an early user of the sheets. How much did you use them when making claiming decisions and did they give you an advantage?

KL: I started out with Ragozin himself, Len Ragozin, who originated the sheets. He called me and he told me, he said, ‘Look, you don’t know me,’ he said, ‘I like your record. When you get a horse it improves. I’m going to call you up to claim some horses.’ He called me and I claimed one and I ran the horse back and it won. I claimed another horse and ran the horse back and it won. That happened three straight times and I’m saying, ‘Geez, this guy’s a genius. Whatever he’s doing, it was pretty good.’ Anyhow, that’s the way I got to know those sheet people and then I started believing in them. Back then, you couldn’t buy them, you had to be kind of a member of their gang. Then he went public with them. I’ve been using sheets and it helps you evaluate the value of the horse and the ability of the horse.

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