T. J. Healey

Who is T. J. Healey?

Thomas J. Healey was an American Thoroughbred horse racing Hall of Fame trainer.

Regularly referred to as "T. J." by both his associates and the media, Healey was born near the site of Fordham University in Fordham, New York. Growing up he worked on his father's dairy farm but rather than cows, his interests centered on Thoroughbred horses. While in his teens he took a job at a racetrack stable and by his early twenties had already begun training horses. In 1888, at Brooklyn's Gravesend Race Track, he saddled the first winner of his fifty-four-year career. For the next eighteen yerars he ran one of the largest public stables in the United States but in 1896 became the trainer for the Montpelier Stable of Richard T. Wilson, Jr., president of Saratoga Race Course. Among the notable horses he trained for Wilson's stable were:

⁕The Parader - won the 1901 Preakness Stakes, Withers Stakes, Lawrence Realization Handicap;

⁕Olambala - wins include the 1909 Latonia Derby and 1910 Brighton and Suburban Handicaps;

⁕Campfire - United States leading money winner in 1916 and American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt;

⁕Hannibal - won 1918 Saratoga Special Stakes, 1919 Travers Stakes;