Sally A. Bailie

Who was Sally A. Bailie?

Sally Anne Bailie was an English-born trainer and owner of Thoroughbred racehorses who competed was one of the first female trainers to win major American Graded stakes races.

Born in Enfield, Middlesex in South East England, Sally Bailie grew up on a farm where she learned to ride horses. After working with racehorses in England, in 1965 she moved to the United States and settled in the New York City area where she worked as an assistant trainer. In 1970 she went out on her own and in 1977 became the first woman trainer in American racing history to win a $100,000 when her horse Tequillo Boogie captured the New York Breeders' Futurity at Finger Lakes Race Track in Farmington, New York. In 1982, she became the first woman trainer to win a $200,000 race when she conditioned the winner of the Pegasus Handicap at Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

At a 1982 Fasig-Tipton dispersal auction in Saratoga, Sally Bailie paid $8,000 for a two-year-old grandson of Northern Dancer named Win. The gelding went on to provide Bailie with some of the most important wins of her career and retired with two Grade 1 wins and earnings in excess of $1.4 million.