H Graham Motion

Graham was born in Cambridge, England in May 1964 and raised at Newmarket’s Herringswell Manor Stud which was operated by his parents Michael and Jo.

Michael was an international bloodstock agent and North American representative for Tattersalls, the British bloodstock sales company. Jo rode as an amateur in England and took care of the 1951 (Aintree) Grand National winner Nickel Coin before becoming an assistant trainer in the United States. Jo now owns and operates the popular Middleburg Tack Exchange in Virginia. The family relocated to the States in 1980 where Graham attended and graduated from Kent in Connecticut.

Graham’s two sisters are Claire, a third-grade teacher in Middleburg, and Pippa, a wholesale gourmet food distributor in the Baltimore/Washington region. Andrew, Graham’s younger brother, has his own sales consignment company, Old Chapel Farm in Bluemont, Virginia.

After graduating from Kent School in Connecticut, Graham began working for Hall of Fame trainer Jonathan Sheppard. During his six years at Sheppard’s Ashwell Stable, Graham traveled extensively with four-time Eclipse award winning steeplechaser Flatterer. This was followed by time with trainer Jonathan Pease in Chantilly, France. It was there that Graham met his future wife Anita (nee Hall), who was working at the time for Alain de Royer-Dupre.

Returning to the United States in 1990, Graham went to work as assistant to Bernard (Bernie) P. Bond at Laurel Park in Maryland. On Bernie’s death in 1993, two of Bond’s owners elected to leave their horses with Graham, who subsequently took out his trainer’s license. He called his operation Herringswell Stables after his childhood home. The stable won 21 races that first year, three of them stakes with Gala Spinaway. 

Graham, Anita and chief assistant Adrian Rolls moved the operation from Laurel Park to Fair Hill Training Center in Northeast Maryland in 2002. Two years later, Bushwood Stables’ Better Talk Now thrust the whole team into the international spotlight with his win in the 2004 John Deere Breeders’ Cup Turf at Lone Star Park. During his remarkable career, Better Talk Now took his connections to Japan and Dubai. “Blackie” retired in 2009 with earnings in excess of $4,000,000, and lived out his days at Fair Hill with his pal Gala Spinaway until his death in 2017 due to complications from colic surgery. Gala Spinaway lived to the ripe age of 31, passing away in 2019. A memorial garden was planted by the boys’ paddock for all to enjoy and remember these two gallant warriors. We think of them every day. 

Among the many highlights in the years since have been more Breeders’ Cup victories – including Shared Account in the Filly & Mare Turf in 2010 and Main Sequence in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Turf. Main Sequence finished 2014 as a dual Eclipse Award winner, named Champion Male Turf Horse and Champion Older Male. Main Sequence returned to Fair Hill still lives there today.

Shared Account’s talented daughter, Sharing, joined her dam, sire (Speightstown) and grandsire (Pleasantly Perfect) as Breeders’ Cup winners with her victory in the Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita in 2019. Bred by Sagamore Farm, she was named Maryland-bred 2-Year-Old Filly Champion for 2019. In 2020, she won Churchill Downs’ Tepin Stakes before shipping to Royal Ascot for the Coronation Stakes-G1 where she was a gallant second to some of the best mares in international racing. Before retiring at the end of 2020, she also won the Edgewood Stakes-G2 and was second in the American Oaks-G1. She headed into her next career as a broodmare with statistics of 9-5-1-2 and $1,092,751 earned.

In 2011, Graham’s name was recorded in the history books as the trainer of a Kentucky Derby winner when Animal Kingdom stormed down the Churchill Downs stretch to win the 137th renewal of America’s premier race. Two years later, Animal Kingdom added more lustre to his trainer’s resume with a win in the Dubai World Cup. Animal Kingdom was awarded the Eclipse Award for champion 3 year old in 2011. Already a success in the breeding shed in Australia and the United Stakes, he was sold to Japanese interests and now stands at JBBA Shizunai Stallion Station in Hokkaido.

As of the beginning of 2024, Graham has celebrated over 2,700 victories with purses earned in excess of $150 million. He is represented by strings at Palm Meadows Training Center and Tampa Bay Downs in Florida each winter.

Graham and Anita also reside in Fair Hill, very near the Herringswell main base. They have a daughter, Jane, and son Marcus, called Chappy. Rounding out the family are Labradors Bentley and Aspen, Irish Black & Tan Hunt Terrier Truly Scrumptious and the most recent additions, cats Cleopatra and Rafters. 

Graham and Anita serve on several charitable organizations including Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, Thoroughbred Charities of America, National Museum of Racing, Thoroughbred Education and Research Foundation (TERF) and The Retired Racehorse Project. 

Long-time leaders in aftercare, Graham and Anita have sent numerous OTTBs to Olympic gold medalist Phillip Dutton in nearby West Grove, Pa., for second careers in three-day eventing. Leading the way was the immensely popular Icabad Crane, voted America’s Most Wanted Thoroughbred at the Retired Racehorse Project in 2014. In training with Phillip at this time are Sea Of Clouds (by Malibu Moon) and the young Union Rags gelding, Lincoln’s Address. Both horses are competing successfully and are very highly regarded as top international prospects.

Graham is also a board member of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and is a director on the Fair Hill Training Center Board.