Hall of Fame: Shirreffs, Clement among 11 inducted during emotional ceremony
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Dottie Shirreffs and Valerie Clement, the women behind two of the most successful horsemen in racing, separately stood before a crowded pavilion Friday morning, recalling the lives they shared with their husbands, both of whom passed away much too soon.
The two women handled themselves with the class and grace that defined their husbands, John Shirreffs and Christophe Clement, throughout their magnificent training careers. They are now Hall of Fame careers.
John Shirreffs and Christophe Clement, whose accomplishments warranted induction into the Hall of Fame while they were alive, were officially inducted into the National Museum of Racing during a 2 1/2-hour ceremony held Friday at the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion across the street from Saratoga Race Course. Shirreffs and Clement were part of a class of 11 inductees.
Shirreffs, who died in February at the age of 80, was best known as the trainer of Zenyatta, but Dottie Shirreffs told of a man whose love for learning about the sport and its participants shaped his career and life.
“He would go through the library at the Hall of Fame and you couldn’t find him because he was still reading everything,” Dottie Shirreffs said. “He’d study it and take it in and appreciate it. He so loved the pillars of the turf, the jockeys, he just craved it and he had an energy to study it. His office was a monument to all of you.”
Dottie Shirreffs met John when she worked as racing manager for Jerry and Ann Moss, who provided Shirreffs with many of his most accomplished horses, including the multiple champion mare Zenyatta and Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo.
“The last few months I’ve been cleaning out things and the common thread in the cards we sent to each other was ‘lucky us, lucky us, lucky us,’ how grateful we are for everything and all of you and every magnificent horse we had the opportunity to be with forever,” she said.
Dottie brought with her to the podium a baseball cap that her husband frequently wore to the races. At the conclusion of her speech, Dottie threw the hat into the audience, reminiscent of when Shirreffs tossed his cap into the Santa Anita crowd after Zenyatta won the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Christophe Clement died in May 2025 as the age of 59 from a rare form of eye cancer. Clement was in the middle of a brilliant career, one in which he won 2,576 races, including 286 graded stakes, and amassed purse earnings of $184.1 million – 12th all-time. He came to New York from France in 1991 and succeeded on the NYRA circuit for 34 years.
“Christophe viewed himself as a conductor, blessed to have talented musicians,” said Valerie Clement, her children Miguel and Charlotte standing a few feet away. “He was very proud of his team – the CC tribe – and the wonderful people he surrounded himself with. . . . Christophe was always learning from young people, looking at the future of racing and envisioning tomorrow.”
Valerie Clement credited trainers Alec Head, Shug McGaughey, and Luca Cumani as giving her husband the courage to chase his dream on a new continent,” she said. “We were welcomed with open arms; we certainly had a very strong [French] accent. I don’t have it anymore.”
Shirreffs and Clement earned induction in the Contemporary Category, as did the champion sprinter Kona Gold, who also had to wait longer than he should have to gain induction.
“A long time coming,” Gus Headley, the son of Kona Gold’s trainer Bruce Headley, said as one of three accepting the honor.
“It was a great ride, he was a great horse,” Gus Headley added. “I helped break him and galloped him for eight years. After he ran second to Artax [in the 1999 Breeders’ Cup Sprint] my dad said, ‘I’m going to show you how to do it.’ ”
Kona Gold would go on to win eight of his next nine starts, including the 2000 Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Churchill Downs where he set a track record of 1:07.77 for six furlongs. In the years after, Bruce Headley was often seen on the backside of California tracks wearing a baseball cap with “1:07.77” emblazoned on it.
Joining Kona Gold as a Hall of Fame inductee was the 1988 champion sprinter Gulch, a homebred of Peter Brant’s who won 13 of 32 starts and earned more than $3 million. He is the only horse to win the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap at ages 3 and 4. Gulch was voted in as part of the Historic Review Committee.
“He was a very special horse for me, a great teacher for me in what you could expect in a great racehorse taking you to so many great events,” Brant said. He was truly a great horse.”
Brant acknowledged Gulch’s dam, Jameela, who raced five times and won three Grade 1s and is buried at Brant’s farm.
Also getting in via the Historic Review Committee was trainer David Whiteley, inducted 21 years after his retirement and nine years after his death. He joined his father, Frank Whiteley, as a Hall of Fame inductee. David Whiteley trained three champions – Revidere, Waya, and Just a Game. He won 454 races, 45 of which were graded stakes, including the 1979 Belmont Stakes with Coastal, who denied Spectacular Bid’s Triple Crown bid.
Sharon Austin Whiteley, David’s ex-wife, and their daughter Kyle Whitelely Schumman, accepted the plaque. Sharon recalled how David was a man of few words and mentioned letters she would receive from Whiteley ended simply with the words “work hard, Love, DAW.”
“Not exactly Shakespeare, but I got the message,” Sharon Whiteley said.
Mongo, the 1963 champion turf horse who won 22 of 46 starts – including 16 stakes – over a four-year racing career (1961-64) was also inducted by the Historic Review Committee.
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Seth Hancock, of Claiborne Farm, was inducted into the Hall of Fame as one of five Pillars of the Turf. That group included Dr. Robert Copelan, a pioneer in the field of equine surgery and one of 11 founding members of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, who will turn 100 years old on Sept. 2, and owners/breeders Joseph Widener, G. Watts Humphrey, and Prince Khalid bin Abdullah of Juddmonte Farm.
Douglas Erskine Crum accepted the Hall of Fame honor for Prince Khalid and spoke of the special relationship Juddmonte had with Bobby Frankel, who trained countless graded stakes winners for Juddmonte.
“When Bobby passed away in 2009, he decided very bravely to name a yearling after him, and he was named Frankel,” Crum said. “That yearling was sent to Henry Cecil and he retired having won 14 races, unbeaten, and the highest rated Thoroughbred in history. Henry Cecil died very shortly after Frankel retired and [Frankel] is a remarkable stallion.”
Crum said while Prince Khalid died in 2021, the Juddmonte “show goes on.”
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