Retired trainer Steve Morguelan dies in accident at age 62

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Steve Morguelan, who sent out his last starter in 2002 after some 30 years of training Thoroughbreds, died Tuesday night at his home when drowning in the Ohio River after apparently going into insulin shock. He was 62.

Morguelan, a diabetic, retired following a health scare in 2003, when he underwent successful surgery for a form of cancer known as cystic neoplasm.

Morguelan began his training career in 1974. He won 727 races for stable earnings of $12.7 million. His best horses accounted for at least 61 stakes wins and included such names as Matching, Satin Ribera, Lithan, Super Hit, Snake Eyes, Tarzans Blade, and Leelanau. His best stakes year was 1990, when his horses won eight stakes.

According to a family friend, Morguelan had a riverfront home in a small Louisville community known as Juniper Beach, where he apparently was clearing out brush along the river Tuesday when he went into shock and fell into the river and drowned.

Morguelan had spent his years in retirement happily raising his two daughters with his wife, Barbara. “The last time I saw him he looked like a million dollars,” said trainer Lynn Whiting, a longtime friend.

His physician and surgeon, Dr. David Richardson, said Morguelan overcame different forms of cancer on four separate occasions. “He was a great man, a great horseman, and a great family man,” said Richardson.

The funeral service will be held Saturday at 10 a.m. Eastern at Epiphany Church in Louisville.