Steeplechase racing’s leading trainers displayed double the winning accomplishments in 2024.
Jack Fisher and Leslie Young tied for most events won, with 27 each. Both also cracked the coveted $1 million mark in winnings. Keri Brion fell into third place with 13 wins.
For the veteran Fisher, winning is a familiar but welcome feeling. “It’s the fifth time, but it never gets old,” he says.
With a win at the Montpelier Hunt Races in Virginia and three more at Callaway Gardens on the same day, Young made history as the second trainer in the same year to make more than $1 million in purses. The only other trainer to reach that milestone was Brion in 2022. “It’s a huge feat,” Young told reporter Sara Cavanagh in The Horse of the Delaware Valley. “Two years ago, we just missed making $1 million by a couple hundred dollars. We did it this year without any heavy hitters. We only had one stakes winner.”
Fisher trained Eclipse winner Snap Decision, owned by Bruton Street and considered the heaviest hitter of the year. The bay gelding is a son of Hard Spun, a successful sire who placed second in the Kentucky Derby in 2009. He’s ridden by the two-time champion jockey Graham Watters. “Snap is well bred,” Fisher says. “On the flats, he was coming in fourth and fifth, but not winning,”
The Hall of Fame trainer was delighted when Snap Decision made the transition from flat to jump racing. “I look for a horse that’s bigger-boned, because they stay sound longer,” Fisher says. “Snap Decision is one of those bigger-boned horses.”
A Coatesville native, the 61-year-old Fisher was born into steeplechase racing. His father, John, who’s 88 and still living in Chester County, was also a trainer. And his mother, Dolly, is a noted owner on the circuit.
Young grew up in West Chester in a family of rideres. Her husband, Paddy Young, is a five-time jockey of the year, and her parents, Dominick and Peggy Falini, hunted with the old Brandywine Hounds. They encouraged their daughter to pursue fox hunting and pony racing. She rode her pony, Daffodil, on her first hunt when she was 4 years old.
As an older girl, Young rode on a team that won gold at the Pony Club Eastern Pennsylvania Region eventing rally. In high school, she worked for Fisher and fellow Hall of Fame trainer Jonathan Sheppard. A natural and an accomplished athlete, She also made All-Star and All-American teams in lacrosse and field hockey.
Young initially left the horse world behind to take a job as a physical therapist and coach for a championship high school girls’ lacrosse team. But she found herself missing the equine community. She got back in the game with Sheppard, ultimately becoming a licensed trainer.
Through most of the season, Fisher thought of Young as the trainer to beat. “I thought Les definitely had me in the spring,” he says.
This year, Fisher will trot out the 11-year-old Snap Decision for what will likely be the horse’s final competitive season. “We’re going to try him one more year,” he says.
A personal goal is to win the prestigious Iroquois in Nashville for a fourth time. “No one has ever done that before, and it would be quite a feat to take home that win,” he says. “I think about retirement, but what else would I do?”
