Jonathan Sheppard

Career

In addition to steeplechase racing, Sheppard has met with considerable success in flat racing. In both venues, he has had a long working relationship with stable owner, George West. Strawbridge, Junior., and in 2008 he conditioned Strawbridge"s filly Forever Together to victory in the Breeders" Cup Filly & Mare Turf. In 1990, he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

In 2004, Sheppard was elected president of the National Steeplechase Association.

Athenian Idol (1973)

Cafe Prince (1977, 1978)

Martie"s Anger (1979)

Flatterer (1983, 1984, 1985, 1986)

Jimmy Lorenzo (1988)

Highland Bud (1989)

Forever Together (2008)

Informed Decision (2009)

At Monmouth Park Racetrack his trainee Arcadius took the $100,000 Helen Haskell Sampson Stake (National Security Agency-G1) by a length under Brian Crowley. He became the first trainer to send out 1,000 jump winners in the United States.

The milestone is considered all the more impressive with the low annual volume of National Steeplechase Association sanctioned races. In 2008, for example, there were a total of only 168 jump races held that year in the United States. On October 29, 2011 (with the victory of the runner "Dugan" at the Aiken Fall Races) Sheppard’s career winnings in National Steeplechase Association races rose by $9,000 (United States dollar) to $20,002,192.

The British-born trainer is the first in the American sport ever to pass the $20-million mark, unadjusted for inflation.

His closest competitor, Jack Fisher, has yet to hit the $10,000,000 mark.

Achievements

• Sheppard came to the United States in 1961 and in 1966 won his first race with Haffaday in a steeplechase event at My Lady"s Manor, Maryland. In 1973 he won his first earnings championship in steeplechase racing. He went on to win the earnings title another twenty-three times. He has trained the winner of four Breeders" Cup Grand National Steeplechase and holds the record for most wins in the Colonial Cup Steeplechase with eleven. Sheppard is the only trainer to win the American steeplechase Triple Crown, doing it with Flatterer, the only horse to win the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Steeplechase horse four years in a row. In 2008, Sheppard joined fellow Hall of Famee inductee Sidney Watters, Junior. as the only men in American racing to have trained a champion over both jumps and on the flat. As of 2010, Sheppard"s horses have won twelve Eclipse Awards: On September 25, 2010, he achieved the milestone of getting his 1,000th steeplechase victory as a trainer.