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Jerry Hollendorfer
Born: June 18, 1949
Akron, Ohio
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JERRY HOLLENDORFER
Is the fifth winningest trainer in North American racing history. He had 4,398 career victories through July 11, 2005.
Has won 30 straight training championships at Bay Meadows and 26 consecutive conditioning crowns at Golden Gate Fields.
Has also captured training championships at Arlington Park (2001) and Thistledown (2004 Summit Meeting).
Finished second in the nation in victories in both 1998 (241 wins) and 1999 (224).
Won a career high 308 races in 2004 when he finished third in the nation in races won.
Also ranked third in the nation in 2001 when he saddled 263 winners.
His barn has topped the $6 million mark in earnings for a year three times – in 1998 ($6,447,301), 2003 ($6,262,447), and 2004 ($6,009,234).
Has trained many major stakes winners, including multiple graded stakes victors: Event of the Year (winner of the Jim Beam Stakes and El Camino Real Derby in 1998), King Glorious (Hollywood Futurity, 1988; Haskell Invitational, 1989), Lite Light (Kentucky Oaks, 1991; Coaching Club American Oaks, 1991), Pike Place Dancer (Kentucky Oaks, 1996; California Derby, 1996), Ninebanks (San Francisco Breeders’ Cup Mile, 2003; Golden Gate Breeders’ Cup Mile, 2003), Yougottawanna (El Camino Real Derby, 2002; Seabiscuit Breeders’ Cup Handicap, 2004-2005), and Adreamisborn (Longacres Mile, 2004; Stanford Breeders’ Cup, 2005).
His victory with Pike Place Dancer in the 1996 California Derby marked the first time a filly had won the race since Miz Clementine defeated the colts in the 1954 California Derby.
Has had one starter in the Kentucky Derby -- Eye of the Tiger, who finished fifth in the 2003 Derby.
Has had some bad luck in getting horses into the Kentucky Derby field. Event of the Year (1998) and Globalize (2000) both sustained injuries while training at Churchill Downs, and U S S Tinosa (2002) didn’t get into the starting lineup due to a lack of earnings.
Set a Northern California record in 1997 when he won 27 stakes, and then came right back to win 26 stakes in 1998.
Shares the Northern California record for most wins on a single card, five, with Ace Gibson and Walter Greenman. Hollendorfer has won five races on a card three times – once at Golden Gate Fields (May 1, 1986) and twice at Bay Meadows (Jan. 23, 1997, and May 26, 2004). Greenman established the record at Bay Meadows on Nov. 25, 1970, and Gibson equaled the mark at Golden Gate Fields on Feb. 24, 1971.
Had a streak of eight consecutive winners in 1996.
Came to California in the late 1960s and never left. Started as a groom at Bay Meadows and went on to work in various capacities for trainers Jerry Dutton and Jerry Fanning before taking out his trainer's license in 1979.
Success did not come quickly as he compiled no more than 16 wins in any of his first six years of training. Had breakout year in 1985 when he won 56 races – only three shy of the grand total of 59 races he won during his first six years of training.
Won 117 races and saw his horses top the $1 million mark in earnings in 1986, a year in which he earned his first training titles at Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows.
Credits Novel Sprite, whom he claimed for $16,000, with putting him on the map. Novel Sprite went on to earn more than $400,000 and was named national Claimer of the Year for 1986. Novel Sprite was also his first stakes winner.
His wife, Janet, is also his chief assistant at the barn.
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