King Leatherbury, a Hall of Fame trainer known as “King of the Claimers” for his ability to turn cheaper horses in lower-level claiming races into winners for more than six decades, died Tuesday. He was 92.
He died at his home, according to the Maryland Jockey Club, which was informed by his son Taylor Leatherbury. No cause of death was provided.
Leatherbury retired in 2023 as the third trainer in history, behind Dale Baird and Jack Van Berg, to win at least 6,000 races. His final total was 6,508 to go with purse earnings of $64,693,537, according to Equibase. He won 52 training titles in Maryland — 26 each at Pimlico and Laurel — and four at Delaware Park.
“He’s one of a kind,” Taylor Leatherbury told Laurel Park. ”There’s never been a man more appropriately named than my father.”
Leatherbury, along with fellow Hall of Famer Bud Delp, Richard Dutrow Sr., and John Tammaro Jr., were known as the Big Four of Maryland racing. They dominated the state in the 1960s and '70s and helped modernize training of thoroughbreds for speed and stamina.
“I really enjoyed the days of the Big Four,” Leatherbury told Laurel Park in 2013. "It was fun trying to compete with them and it made us all better trainers.”
Leatherbury led North American trainers in wins in 1977 and 1978, and won 300 or more races each year from 1975 to 1978.
He was a first-ballot inductee to the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame in 2015.
Leatherbury saddled one horse in the Kentucky Derby, with I Am the Game finishing 13th in 1985. That horse was fourth in the Preakness that year, one of Leatherbury's four starters in the second leg of the Triple Crown.
A Maryland native, Leatherbury took out his trainer's license in 1958 and won his first race the next year at Sunland Park, now known as Tampa Bay Downs.
"I got started because my father had horses, a breeder and owner and I just enjoyed betting on them, really, so I decided to get in the game,” Leatherbury told Laurel Park in 2013. “I have never really considered this work. I enjoy it, which has probably made the difference.”
After earning a business administration degree from the University of Maryland, he mastered the claiming game, in which owners buy horses from designated races for a specific price, by studying race charts and past performance statistics. He did much of his work from home rather than at his barn, where a devoted staff carried out his orders.
“Back in those days, the early '60s, no one claimed horses,” Leatherbury told The Washington Post in 2005. “Those were the days people started managing horses in a business-like way.”
The best horse of Leatherbury’s career was Ben’s Cat, whom he bred, owned and trained to 32 wins — 26 in stakes races — and more than $2.6 million in purse earnings from 2010-17. Ben’s Cat died in 2017 and his remains are buried near the paddock at Laurel.
He also trained Grade 1 winners Catatonic and Taking Risks. He claimed Port Conway Lane three times, and the horse won 52 of 242 starts from 1971 to 1983, racing until age 14.
He is survived by Linda, his wife of 62 years, and twin sons Taylor and Todd.
___
AP horse racing: https://apnews.com/hub/horse-racing