Billy Turner, Trainer of a Triple Crown Winner, Dies at 81
By Richard Sandomir, 1/5/22, New York Times

William Hutt Turner Jr. was born Feb 29, 1940, in Rochester NY
& grew up in Towanda & Unionville PA. His father worked at
Eastman Kodak; his mother, Esther (Allyn) Turner, was a
homemaker and bred dogs.

Turner began his horse-racing career in his late teens as a
steeplechase rider for the trainer William Burling Cocks.
“The falling off part isn’t too bad; it’s hitting the ground
that hurts,” Turner told Sports Illustrated in 1977. “I had
broken ribs and collarbones, things like that. But you can
tape up a broken collarbone and ride with it.”

After becoming an assistant trainer for Cocks, Turner started
training thoroughbreds in the mid-60s. In 1969, he began working
with Dust Commander and other horses for Robert E. Lehmann, a
retired contractor. But sometime before Dust Commander won the
1970 Kentucky Derby, Lehmann fired Turner for not winning
often enough.

Turner — who Hill said was a skilled raconteur who “never let
the truth get in the way of a good story” — got a 2nd chance
at the Derby when he took on Slew. But his association with
the horse ended several months after Slew lost his first race
(finishing 4th at Hollywood Park in Inglewood CA) in July 1977.

Slew’s owners and Turner called it an amicable parting, but the
break was initiated by Turner’s excessive drinking.

“For over a decade I’d been literally living on alcohol,” he
told The Baltimore Sun in 2010, when he said he was 20 years
into sobriety.

In 1978, Turner sued the Taylors & the Hills for 10% of the
$12 million for which Slew was syndicated as a breeding
stallion, plus the right to breed him to one mare a year.

“I can lock Slew up until this thing is settled,” he told The
New York Times. “He won't be able to be bred to a single mare
until the courts decide on this case.”

Taylor countered by saying, “You can’t train a horse when you
spend more time in a bar than at the barn.”

Mrs. Hill said the suit was settled.

Turner — whose horses won 533 races out of 4,314 started, acc.
to the Equibase website — trained other successful horses.
One of them, Play On, finished 2nd in the Preakness & 4th in
the Belmont in 1984.

Overall, his horses earned $17.5 million.

A GoFundMe page that was posted on Dec. 27 had raised nearly
$40,000 for Turner’s medical and living costs.

He met Patti Rich, a former exercise rider and jockey, at an
Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in 1988, & they married 3 years
later. His two previous marriages had ended in divorce. In
addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Nelle
Durizch, from his first marriage; a son, Liam, from his 2nd
marriage; a stepdaughter, Jessica Rich; & 4 grandkids.

In 2010, after Turner’s name didn't appear on the list of
nominees for the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame,
Paul Moran, a columnist at ESPN, made the case for his
inclusion. Turner hasn’t been on a list of finalists in at
least a decade.

“Turner is somewhat milder than low-key & would never say this
about himself,” Moran wrote, “but no American trainer living or
dead not already in the Hall of Fame deserves induction more
than the trainer of Seattle Slew, Czaravich, Gaviola, Punch Line
and many other stakes winners.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/sports/horse-racing/billy-turner-dead.html