There likely aren’t many, if anyone for that matter, involved in any meaningful way in the steeplechase industry in the U.S. that has not heard of Keri Brion. However, the 34-year-old is quickly making a name for herself with her flat stable as well, largely helped by a quintet of winners at Saratoga last summer, including Miztertonic (Mission Impazible), victorious at the Spa the past two seasons.
On full display and getting to flex both muscles at Far Hills in New Jersey Saturday, Brion will saddle horses in five of the six events on the card, including the 2 5/8-mile G1 Grand National Hurdles Stakes as well as the day’s finale, the John Forbes Memorial over two miles on the flat.
Brion will be represented by Swore (Broken Vow) in the Grand National, while 5-year-old Ocean City (American Pharoah) will wave the KB Racing banner in the John Forbes.
Notably, Brion has won both races previously, taking the Grand National with The Mean Queen in 2021 in addition to the inaugural John Forbes Memorial with Agitare the following season.
“Swore was eligible for the Novice stake [the restricted Foxbrook Champion Hurdle, race 4] and the Grade 1 [Grand National] and we decided to take a shot at the Grade 1,” she explained. “We went back and forth about what the right thing to do was and I just think the track and distance and everything about him screams that he should love this track.”
Previously trainer by Graham Motion on the flat, Swore has made only three starts over hurdles, finishing better than second in all of them. Stepping up from a [jump] maiden win at Colonial Downs in August, the 6-year-old won the G1 Lonesome Glory Handicap at the Big A on Sept. 18.
“My horse is a bit of an unknown,” she admitted. “He is young and slightly inexperienced against some of these more seasoned horses, but I think very highly of him. It’s a very hot race. But I have loved him from the day he came to my barn and the decision to run him in the Grade 1 is not a decision we took lightly. I am quietly confident.”
Also somewhat of an unknown in the card’s final race, Brion was equally high on this year’s John Forbes contender, Ocean City.
“I have won the race before and I know what it takes to win it and he definitely has what it takes,” Brion said. “He should definitely run well.”
Previously trained by Brittany Russell, the 5-year-old was a well-beaten sixth in his debut going 2 1/4 miles over the hurdles at Colonial Downs in August before finishing a much-improved second in a two-mile test on the flat on Sept. 11.
“He ended up in a maiden race at Colonial Downs that went incredibly fast early,” Brion said explaining the gelding’s poor debut jumping effort. “If you look at the fractions they were almost going flat horse time. It’s a very hard thing to do to make your hurdle debut with a pace in front of you going that fast. The leaders didn’t stay on either, but it’s really a hard thing for a horse to do. It wasn’t really anything on him. He got the trip. His jumping was a bit green, but it was hard for him to make up ground when they went so fast early.”
Despite his poor showing over hurdles, Brion explained that she still feels the gelding has options in the future.
“I will jump him again but I think very highly of him on the flat,” she said. “We ran him at Colonial in the 2-mile race just as a prep. He got into a lot of traffic, but he came flying late. I am quietly confident about him going two miles up and down hills.”
Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree
A native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Brion grew up in nearby Kirkwood, where her passion for horses and racing was ignited at a very young age.
“I started with racehorses when I was 10 years old,” she said. “I was with Ronnie and Betsy Houghton [Sylmar Farm]. It was just up the road from me. I was there for nine years.”
Riding junior pony races when she was 14, she took on competing in junior races at the steeplechase meets at 15.
After joining Hall of Fame Jonathan Sheppard’s operation in 2009, Brion rode her first flat race at a steeplechase meet in 2010 and it was another year before she rode her first hurdle race.
The last assistant to Sheppard after an 11-year tenure, Brion launched her own training operation upon Sheppard’s retirement in 2021. Sheppard died in 2023 at the age of 82.
“I didn’t really work for anybody else so I really came up under him,” she said. “I developed a very good relationship with a lot of the owners, and I knew there would come a time that I would go out on my own, but I decided to stick it out as long as I did.”
What did Brion learn from her Hall of Fame mentor?
“Everything.”
She explained, “The biggest things that I learned from him was about letting them just be horses and training each horse individually. It was also his ability to get inside a horse’s head. He treated very horse as an individual. We did some things with horses that I remember thinking, ‘this will never work.’ Maybe it was with a horse that refused to train. He would get them out in the fields and eventually get them training. He did different things that stayed with me.”
In her first season after hanging up her own shingle, she campaigned The Mean Queen, winner of the [American] Grand National and ultimately was named the Eclipse Award winning steeplechase horse that season.
Primarily based at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland, Brion currently extends her team of runners to compete on other circuits, including Fair Grounds in the winter as well as maintaining strings at Saratoga, Colonial and Delaware in the summer.
While Brion is probably still most recognized for her success in steeplechase, the concentration of flat horses versus her jump team weighs heavily toward the former division.
“We probably have about 70 [flat horses] to 30 [NH],” she said. “We pretty much race everywhere in the Midlantic.”
As is the case with most new trainers, the start wasn’t an easy one, however, it didn’t take long for success to come knocking.
“I had 20 stalls at Fair Hill when I started and eight of them weren’t filled,” she laughed. “Now I have two barns of 70 horses there with others horses stabled elsewhere too.”
Looking to manage her training operation as a business rather than just an expensive hobby, Brion admits that purses in the steeplechase industry makes it a little cost prohibitive in term of expanding that area of her operation further as well as maintaining her ever-expanding staff.
“At this point, we focus at the top level with the jumpers,” she said. “I have been so blessed in that area and my business model is to focus at that level. Horses like Swore, who you know pretty early on that they are nice horses, that’s what I look at. I’ve become very selective with the steeplechase horses I have in the barn.”
In 2024, Brion’s stable won 42 races for earnings of $2,079,202. So far this year, she appears on track to surpass that figure with already over $1.9 million in the coffers.
Yet, despite her well-publicized connection to jump racing, Brion admits that playing, and winning, on a big stage like Saratoga was an important step in also boosting her growing recognition in flat racing circles.
“[In 2024], I had my first flat winner at Saratoga [won four at the meet] and this year we had 5 from the small group that we ran,” she explained. “We’ve done well with the flat horses, and two Saratoga meets have gone a long way in terms of my clientele, like getting new clients and investing in young horses. The consistency in the stable has given me the opportunity to increase the quality and quantity of the horses.”
“Overall, the quality in the barn has increased a lot in the last 2-3 three years. We have better horses. [Kirk and Debra Wycoff’s] Three Diamonds Farm has also really helped amp up my flat horses, because they have given me better horses in general.”
Whether it’s on the flat or over hurdles, the goal remains crystal clear for the up-and-coming trainer.
“It’s been a goal of mine since I took over training–developing my stable,” she said. “It’s not so much about the numbers but to have the winners and have the quality to do that.”