Jeff Greenhill is not a trainer who spends his time grabbing headlines. He houses his string of 30 horses in the winter at Belterra Park in Ohio, Turfway Park in Kentucky, and Indiana Grand, and he has quietly been plying his trade for getting on for 25 years. He has trained over 600 winners and says he still enjoys getting up and heading to the track each morning.
An outsider to the sport until he was 40, Greenhill (pictured left) took early retirement in 1994 (aged 38) from his career as a chemical engineer, his love of horses drawing him to another path. He was advised if he wanted to make a career with horses that he ought to go into Thoroughbreds.
He walked hots for about 17 days for D Wayne Lukas, then thought he’d got the hotwalker thing worked out. From there, he went to groom for Peter Vestal, who he said was a really good trainer around Churchill Downs, and then went to Donny Habeeb as an owner/groom, before taking out his own license to train in 1996.
Who do you think is the most important person in world racing history?
Well, from my world view, I would have to say D Wayne Lukas. He changed the game, and, while I’m not wild about super trainers and the way the industry is going towards them, Mr Lukas changed the game as the first ‘super’ trainer from when I first got into the business. He was absolutely the undisputed king of Thoroughbred racing, and, even though he is now in his mid-80s, he is still training and still winning a big one now and then.
And, in addition to what he achieved personally, look at what trainers came up from his shedrow: Todd Pletcher, Mike Maker, Kieran McLaughlin, Dallas Stewart, Randy Bradshaw etc.
What is your favorite venue and race?
My favorite race is the Kentucky Derby. It’s like Christmas to me. I love following the horses leading up to it, reading the form and of course watching it. To me, it is the premier race.
My favorite venue is Keeneland because I’ve raced and won there. I’ve never been to Saratoga. I hear great things about it - and Del Mar. It’s always fun to go to Keeneland, though, and compete there. I’ve won several down there. People know their horses there. It’s just a great place to go and race a horse.
What is your fondest memory in racing?
Well, my first win as a trainer at the winter meet at Turfway in 1996 [a claiming race for 3-year-old fillies on March 3]. It was my third runner. I bought about 12 winner photos - I only needed one! Count Sparks was her name. I’ve still got some of the pictures about the place somewhere.
Then my first runner at Keeneland. I told my wife Sherri it would probably take five or six years years to have a winner there. The horse was called Isaacsmyman and the race was over a mile and five eighths. I remember the Daily Racing Form had comments about each horse and said this is another one who will be gasping for air at the wire. He won by 14 lengths. I wasn’t ready for that. He was a nice horse. He won five in a row at Turfway one year. He was a really fun horse to be around.
What do you see as the biggest challenge racing faces today?
Now this is a big question. I think the biggest challenge it faces is that it is seen maybe as a dying industry, and I don’t really know how to turn that around.
I feel, with simulcasting now, maybe the tail is wagging the dog. River Downs [now Belterra Park] used to get tens of thousands of people in attendance on the weekends, and now you go to Churchill Downs and it looks empty.
Of course, the boutique meets get the crowds, but away from that it’s a grind for people like me trying to make a living, and if there is coverage on ESPN it’s often a downbeat story. They don’t cover it as a sport. I miss how it used to be covered, but that was a long time ago, and the same thing is happening a bit to baseball and boxing.
If you could change one thing in racing what would it be?
Here’s where I get politically incorrect, and the woke crowds won’t like my remedy. But, when I left the corporate world, I was working for the government and I was making good money, but I didn’t like being a bureaucrat. We were just spending other people’s money to tell people what they should and shouldn’t do.
When I first came into racing, there was not that much bureaucracy. It was up to you to do the right thing - or not and face the consequences. But now every time you turn around there is a new regulation, a new thing you have to do. And some of these rules are being introduced by people who wouldn’t know a furlong from a fetlock.
Most good horsemen want to take care of their horses, but now it feels like you’re not trusted or that you are guilty of something you are not. There were a few bad horsemen who did some bad things, but the vast majority of horsemen out there want to do the right thing. They want to win races, but they love the horse first and they don’t want to do anything wrong.
The sins of a few have burdened all of us with being not trusted.
So I hope the pendulum swings back a little. I’m not a fan of big government in general, or in racing.