Northwest trainer Belvoir dead at 82

Howard Belvoir, who trained for more than six decades and had one of the most prominent stables at Emerald Downs in Washington state, died on Friday, Emerald Downs announced in a statement over the weekend.

Belvoir was 82 and died of heart failure, according to the track.

Belvoir won 2,192 races in a career that began in 1963. He was active at the 2026 Emerald Downs meeting that ended last month, and had his final winner there in August 2025.

Inducted in the Washington Racing Hall of Fame in 2013, Belvoir ranks third in career wins at Emerald Downs with 830; second in earnings, with more than $9.5 million; and sixth in career stakes wins, with 49. He had a stable at the track since it opened in 1996.

Belvoir trained at other venues in Washington state, including Longacres, which predated Emerald Downs as the flagship track in the Pacific Northwest.

At Emerald Downs, Belvoir won three runnings of the track’s signature race, the Longacres Mile, first run at Longacres in 1935. Belvoir won the Longacres Mile with Wasserman (2008), Assessment (2009), and Barkley (2018).

Wasserman was recognized as the 2008 Washington Horse of the Year. Wasserman was ridden by Jennifer Whitaker, who teamed with Belvoir to win 322 races.

Belvoir was active in California until 2010. He won the 2004 Sunny Slope Stakes at Santa Anita with Seattles Best Joe, and had a presence at Golden Gate Fields from 1992 to 2020, winning 10 stakes.

In the 1990s in California, Belvoir trained Lazor, a four-time winner in sprint stakes who finished second by 4 1/2 lengths to the famous California-bred mare Soviet Problem in a six-furlong match race at Golden Gate Fields in May 1994.

Belvoir, born in Kansas and raised in Idaho, began training in 1963 at Exhibition Park in British Columbia, a track later known as Hastings Park. He also trained in Oregon.

Belvoir once cited the Oregon-bred Red Eye Express, a winner of 22 of 68 starts, as runner who helped boost his career in its early years. Red Eye Express was second to Times Rush in the 1974 Longacres Mile.

Belvoir is survived by longtime partner Vicki Potter and three sons – Heath, Clan and Vann.

No services are planned, according to the Emerald Downs statement. The track plans to honor the Belvoir family during its 2027 meeting.

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