“He’s one of a kind,” said one of his twin sons, Taylor Leatherbury. “There has never been a man with a more appropriate name than my father.”
Born March 26, 1933 in Shady Side, Maryland, Leatherbury received his trainer’s license in 1958 and won his first race the following year with a horse named Mister L at Florida’s Sunshine Park. That victory launched a remarkable career that spanned more than six decades.
Leatherbury’s horses won 6,508 races and earned $64,693,537. He captured 52 training titles in Maryland, 26 each at Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, and four meeting championships at Delaware Park.
Leatherbury led all North American trainers with victories in 1977 and 1978, and won 300 or more races each year from 1975 to 1978.
He had at least 200 wins per year for eleven consecutive years and had 100 or more winners for 26 consecutive years. Leatherbury was among the top three annually in North American wins from 1975 to 1980 and was among the top 10 nationally in wins four times.
“The first few years I trained horses I raced at places like Sunshine Park [Florida]Scarborough Downs [Maine]and Thistledown [Ohio],” Leatherbury told Tom Atwell on May 23, 1993: Daily racing form. “I had absolutely no idea who the leading trainer was. I was just struggling to see if I could get one win. I can’t even remember if they had a list of leading trainers at the time. But once I got to the point where Bud Delp and I became competitive here in Maryland, winning became very important to me.”
Leatherbury stabled his horses, appropriately enough, in barn number 1 in Laurel Park. He was one of the ‘Big Four’ of Maryland racing, along with fellow trainers Delp, Dick Dutrow Sr. and John Tammaro, who dominated the Maryland rankings in the 1970s.
“No one in the history of racing … has done what he has done for the last 25 years: training the horses based on speed figures, the Racing Form, with the help of top assistants and veterinarians,” Delp told peat writer Vinnie Perrone in the May 20, 1993 Washington Post. “Believe me, King Leatherbury can train any racehorse that ever lived, and train him to perfection.”
In the same article, Perrone said that Leatherbury, also known as the “King of the Claimers,” achieved success “primarily by claiming horses, using guile, insider information and statistics to buy and sell thoroughbreds in the cheaper, unpublicized races.” Essentially, he is one of the greatest cattle dealers in the sport.”
Upon his retirement in 2023, he was the third trainer in history to win 6,000 races.
“I don’t know how it happened,” Leatherbury said on the occasion of his 6,000th win, Cherokee Sunrise, at the State Fair in Timonium. “The wins have added up over the years. It’s amazing to think that there are only two others in history [Dale Baird and Jack Van Berg] have won more races. I am honored to be in their company.”
The late Jack Mann, a member of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame’s Joe Hirsch Media Roll of Honor, wrote this about Leatherbury in Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred in 1993.
“Being King Leatherbury means never having to wish you were someone else, that you were doing something different that everyone else, everywhere does. Being a horse trainer, Leatherbury’s way, means that you almost always do everything that’s fun about racing, and you don’t do most of what’s not fun.”
Leatherbury’s top horses included Catatonic, winner of the Grade 1 Hempstead Stakes at Belmont Park in 1987, and Taking Risks, winner of the Grade 1 Philip H. Iselin Handicap at Monmouth Park in 1994.
His most popular runner, however, was Ben’s Cat, a homebred dog owned and trained by Leatherbury. Ben’s Cat won 25 stakes races and earned more than $2.6 million.
Leatherbury was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 2015. He is also a member of the Anne Arundel County Hall of Fame and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Maryland Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002. He served as president of both the Maryland Horse Breeders’ Association and Maryland Million Ltd., and served on the board of directors of Timonium.
Laurel Park honors Leatherbury annually with the King T. Leatherbury Stakes for 3-year-olds and older at 5 1/2 furlongs on grass. The 2026 edition will take place on Saturday April 18.
Leatherbury grew up on a farm in Anne Arundel County and graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in business administration.
He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Linda Marie Heavener Leatherbury, 82; twin sons, Taylor and Todd, 58; and grandson Heavener, 18.
Edited press release from Maryland Jockey Club
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