Five individuals with long experience in steeplechasing and Thoroughbred racing have been elected to the National Steeplechase Association Board of Directors. Three were re-elected to new terms, and another, Bill Pape, returns to service on the board, which oversees steeplechase racing in America. Joining the board is trainer Neil R. Morris.
Re-elected to three-year terms were Sarah Jeffords, Charles W. Strittmatter, and Tom Voss.
Jeffords, a New York resident, carries forward a long family tradition in Thoroughbred racing. Her grandfather, Walter M. Jeffords Sr., was a Hall of Fame Exemplar of Racing. Her father, Walter M. Jeffords Jr., bred Racing Hall of Fame member Lonesome Glory, who was raced by her mother, Kay Jeffords. In 2010, Sally Jeffords served as vice president of the National Steeplechase Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to assuring a strong future for steeplechasing racing.
Strittmatter currently serves as the NSA’s treasurer. He and his wife, Susan, own Clorevia Farm in Flint Hill, Va., and campaign steeplechase horses in the farm’s name.
Voss has been the National Steeplechase Association’s champion trainer by wins four times, most recently in 2002, and currently ranks fourth by all-time purse earnings. He also is a successful flat trainer based in Maryland.
Pape, a longtime steeplechase owner, has campaigned four individual Eclipse Award winners, most recently Mixed Up in 2009. He co-owned Racing Hall of Fame member Flatterer, a four-time champion. Pape, a Unionville, Pa., resident, served as the NSA’s president from 1979-’87 and ’91-’98.
Morris, a resident of Marshall, Va., has been a licensed trainer since 1993. He trains for the Kinross Farm of Zohar and Lisa Ben-Dov, among other clients. He was the sport’s sixth-leading trainer by wins in the 2003, when Kinross’ Lord Kenneth won the Virginia Gold Cup.