Page 8 - The Hunt - Spring 2021

MEMORANDUM
Going Out on Top
Renowned horseman Jonathan Sheppard retires.
By Don Clippinger
Jonathan Sheppard’s horses excelled on dirt and turf and over fences. From his Ashwell Stables in West Grove, Pa., Sheppard has won every race and prize worth winning
in American steeplechase racing. Now,
he’s retiring.
Sheppard is the National Steeplechase Association’s all-time leading trainer by wins (1,242) and purse earnings ($24,902,442). He’s been the champion trainer by wins
26 times, and he led the sport by purses for 29 years—both records. Sheppard won a race at New York’s Saratoga Race Course for 47 straight years through 2015. He earned 15 Eclipse Awards and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame in 1990.
Among Sheppard’s Eclipse winners were Forever Together, the 2008 female turf champion, and Informed Decision, the 2009 champion female sprinter. He also trained William T. Young’s Storm Cat, a Grade 1 winner who became America’s foremost stallion in the 1990s.
Over the years, Sheppard has provided his share of leadership in the sport. He served as NSA president from 2004 to 2006, receiving the sport’s highest honor, the F. Ambrose Clark Award, in 2013. With late Hall of Fame trainer Jack Van Berg, Sheppard has been
an innovator in marshalling large training stables similar to those in his native England. Not far from his training base in West Grove, he participated in groundbreaking research projects with Penn Vet’s New Bolton Center.
Sheppard’s 2019 champion was Hudson River Farms’ Winston C (Ire). Last year, he won the steeplechase trainer titles by wins and purse earnings. “People undoubtedly will ask why I’m retiring now,” Sheppard says. “There’s no one single reason, and the reasons combined to say that now was the time to step back from American racing. I always wanted to go out on top, and the past year’s championships checked that box.
Sheppard also points to medical reasons. “I had a flare-up of my Lyme disease last year that kept me away from the horses and the
races,” he says. “It’s in remission now, but in fairness to my owners, I didn’t want to have another Lyme episode interfere with their horses’ careers. And I just turned 80, so it seems to be a good time to pass the reins to a younger generation here in the U.S.”
Sheppard was born in 1940 in Ashwell,
the hamlet 45 miles north of London that would become the name of his American stables. Although he became an accomplished point-to-point jockey, Sheppard was barred from racing because of his father’s career as
a Jockey Club handicapper, which created a conflict of interest. He landed in Pennsylvania at W. Burling Cocks, taking out his trainer’s license in 1965. His first steeplechase winner was Redmond Stewart’s Haffaday in the 1966 John Rush Streett maiden timber race at My Lady’s Manor in Maryland. Two years later, Haffaday won the Maryland Hunt Cup.
The prior winter, Sheppard had met George Strawbridge Jr., owner of Augustin Stable. A descendant of Campbell Soup Company’s founder and a history professor, Strawbridge was a highly talented amateur jockey, and many of his horses were suited to hunt meets. They notched their first victory together with Brandon Hill at Aqueduct in September 1966.
Strawbridge’s Augustin Stable would become the NSA’s all-time leading owner, with more than $9 million in purses and 23 annual championships from 1974 through 2005. The best member of the Augustin- Sheppard steeplechase team was Cafe Prince, elected to the Hall of Fame in 1985.
Sheppard became so dominant that, in 1986, he carried a record 176 pounds to victory in the National Hunt Cup in Malvern. Flatterer joined Sheppard in the Hall of Fame in 1994.
Between the jumps and the racetrack, Sheppard accounted for almost 21,000 starts, winning 3,426 races. His career earnings total $88.7 million. After 56 brilliant years, he has closed the book on his history-making American training experience.
A version of this story first appeared in Paulick Report.
6 THE HUNT MAGAZINE spring 2021
JIM GRAHAM