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JONATHAN SHEPPARD
SHEPPARD’S MAGIC TOUCH
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ONATHAN Sheppard could be on the cusp of history. The 68-year-old trainer navigated a stellar season with Augustin Stable’s Forever Together. In March, the four-year-old filly refused to train. By November, she had won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf and a possible Eclipse Award as the leading turf filly or mare. With her Eclipse Award, Sheppard would join fellow Hall of Famer Sidney Watters Jr. as the only men to train a champion over jumps and on the flat. Born in Ashwell, England, Sheppard tried a stint in the Army and another stint in the family’s investment firm before coming to the United States in 1961 to pursue an amateur riding career, landing a job with Hall of Fame trainer Burley Cocks. It didn’t take long for him to realize he wasn’t going to be anything close to his boyhood idol Lester Piggott. No, Sheppard decided early that training was his gig. He met George Strawbridge Jr. of Augustin Stable at a dinner party and things began to snowball from there. Sheppard changed American steeplechasing, joining the Hall of Fame in 1990. He’s the all-time leading steeplechase trainer in the United States: most career wins, most purse money earned, most championships, most Eclipse Award winners. If it can be done, he’s done it. But he’s not a one-trick pony. In his homeland, they call it dualpurpose. Sheppard has excelled at steeplechasing and flat racing. He trained stakes winners Storm Cat, With Anticipation, Crowd Pleaser, Annie
Edge, Forever Together and others, many – including Forever Together – for Strawbridge. Sheppard and his wife, Cathy, reside in Hollywood, Florida and at the farm in Unionville, Pennsylvania.
Why did you come to America? My parents didn’t seem to have a plan for me. Neither did I. After I left school, I sat around for a year and didn’t do anything but ride a few horses. I didn’t really like the Army very much. It was good for me, though. Then I was in the
All-time leading steeplechase trainer and Eclipse Award winner Jonathan Sheppard conquered the Flat scene last year with Forever Together in the Breeders’ Cup. By Sean Clancy
Sheppard with jockey Danielle Hodsdon
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