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Thanks to great owners and game horses our stable finished in the TOP 5 in the Final Trainer Standings once again at Turfway Park during the Winter meet 2009 with a Three (3) Win Night on January 2, 2009. We followed up with several multiple win nights on February 14th, March 5th, and May 5th. THANK YOU! - Jeff Greenhill |
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Turfway Park featured a biography of Jeff Greenhill in 2009 -
Birthdate: November 16, 1955
Being struck by a car at age 6 might be the seminal moment of Jeff Greenhill’s life, though more than 30 years passed before the incident made its full impact.
The car struck Greenhill as he was rushing to see a neighbor’s newborn calf. Though not cited, the driver was concerned and stayed in touch, and after Greenhill recovered the man took him horseback riding. Always animal-crazy, Greenhill wasn’t permitted to own a horse as a youngster, but once on his own he bought several Quarter Horses and eventually dabbled in team roping. But as a friend pointed out, trophies and ribbons don’t add up to a living. Greenhill turned his attention to Thoroughbreds.
At the time, Greenhill was already earning a substantial living as a chemical engineer. After graduating from Auburn University in 1979 he had joined the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, as a field engineer. By August 1988 he was a department manager overseeing 50 workers and a $20 million budget.
On the side he got involved in pinhooking, buying two or three weanlings at the November sales and turning them around the following September. In 1992, walking around Keeneland with Ben Walden Sr., he ventured that he’d like to try training. Instead of the laugh Greenhill expected, the old hardboot said, “Well, if you’re going to do it, you’d better get started.”
So in April 1994, at age 38, Greenhill took an early retirement package from TVA, moved with his wife to Kentucky, and started walking hots for D. Wayne Lukas.
“I figured I could pass the trainer’s test if I studied, but I wanted to know all the work that goes into it,” Greenhill said. After 17 days as a hotwalker, he moved to rubbing horses for Pete Vestal, staying about seven months. In December 1994 he started grooming for Donnie Habeeb. One of his assignments was a filly he also owned, Blondeintheshower, and in a Turfway allowance race in January 1995 she gave Greenhill his first win as an owner.
Greenhill opened his own stable in March 1996 and promptly earned his first win. His first stakes win came with Snappy Little Tune in the 1997 Peony Stakes at Hoosier Park. Racing primarily in the Midwest, through mid-July 2009 his stable has collected nearly 250 wins, including six stakes, and purse earnings of $3.3 million.
In answer to the obvious question—why exchange a secure and profitable career for the vagaries of Thoroughbred racing?—Greenhill has a ready answer.
“There’s no winner’s circle in chemical engineering. In this game you know you’re alive. It might be going great or you might be hurting, but at least you know you’re alive. You never know if that next horse might be the one that makes the cover of the Racing Form.”
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Greenhill Racing was featured in the November 27, 2005 issue of DRF Simulcast Weekly, read this article by Byron King >>
Reprinted By Permission of Daily Racing Form |
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Thanks to great owners and game horses our stable finished in the TOP 5 in the final Trainer Standings of the first ever meet conducted in the U.S.A. on Poly-track, at Turfway Park, Fall 2005. THANK YOU!
Come out and see us race this winter on the
fast, consistent, and safe Poly-track at Turfway Park!
- Jeff Greenhill |
| "Jeff Greenhill annually makes key claims and moves up horses' forms." - Horse Player Magazine July/August 2005 |
Jeff (at left) receiving the "Horseman of the Week" award in the Churchill Downs winner's circle. |
Fall 2003 - "Greenhill Enjoying New Career", by Marty McGee, Daily Racing FormThat Saturday race is the $100,000 Bassinet Stakes, the sister race to the River Downs showcase, the $200,000 Cradle Stakes, which will be run Monday at the Cincinnati track. Greenhill will saddle Snappy Little Cat, a gray homebred who won the Aug. 10 Bassinet prep and figures to be among the middle wagering choices in a field of 11 2-year-old fillies in the six-furlong race. Greenhill, 47, is unlike many trainers in at least one respect: He was 40 when he got his first trainer's license, in 1996. Since then, Greenhill and his wife, Sherri - who also happens to be one of his main clients - have had many enjoyable experiences in racing, including three stakes wins in the late 1990's by Snappy Little Tune, whose first foal is Snappy Little Cat. "I was looking to sell Snappy Little Cat at auction, but then one of my longtime owners, Stan Schofer, bought half of her for a pretty fair amount," Greenhill said. "So Sherri and I are racing her in partnership with Stan, and hopefully it'll work out the way we hope." Greenhill has shifted his stable from the Trackside training facility in Louisville, Ky., to River, which is about 70 miles from his home in La Grange, Ky. "The stall situation in Louisville pretty much forced me into that move," he said. "It's okay, because I really like the surface at River." In the Bassinet, for which entries were drawn Tuesday, Snappy Little Cat, by Tactical Cat, will face several of the fillies she defeated in the prep. However, a handful of newcomers figure to make the Bassinet considerably tougher. Those new shooters include Stoneway, Mocha Queen, and In Rome, all of whom won maiden races this month at Ellis Park, and Ding's Thing, already a winner of two Ohio-bred stakes for trainer Tim Hamm. Meanwhile, entries for the 1 1/16-mile Cradle were to be drawn Thursday. Blushing Indian, second in the Sanford at Saratoga for trainer Dale Romans, should be a solid favorite in what is shaping up as a medium-size field of 2-year-old colts and geldings. Snappy Little Cat finished third by less than 3 lengths for the win in the 2003 $100,000 Bassinet Stakes! |
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