Crowning a King

King Leatherbury has never been one of the glamor trainers in North America. He's as hard-knocking and honest as most of his runners and, like most of them, doesn't usually stray too far from the Mid-Atlantic circuit that has been his home for decades. He's never had a really "big name" horse, and you'll never see him chatting up the media at the Kentucky Derby. All he's done is win races -- a lot of them: 6,454 as of today, enough to put him fourth on the all-time North American trainers' list. It's also been enough to put Leatherbury into the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame, an honor announced today.

Blink a couple of times, and that number may have bumped up, because Leatherbury isn't exactly resting on his laurels even at the ripe old age of 82. His current stable star is four-time Grade 3 winner Ben's Cat, a nine-year-old gelding with an enthusiastic fan base in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Leatherbury trains him, owns him and bred him, and at this point the two old campaigners are as inseparable as bread and butter. And you can be sure that tomorrow morning, Leatherbury will be doing his rounds in the stable just as he has for decades, Hall of Fame or no Hall of Fame. After all, he didn't get into the Hall of Fame by leaving the little things undone, and you can bet he isn't starting now. He's one of a kind, and he finally has the crown that his career deserves.