DEL: Catching up with… Ted Maher
Hoping for more horses than law books in future
The Biz
July 21, 2026
Ted Maher jokes that his stable at Delaware Park is small enough that a canceled race can throw everything into chaos.
With just two horses—River Seine and Future Blues—in the barn, weather and racing conditions matter. A race coming off the turf or an extreme heat cancellation can upend an entire week’s plans.
But Maher isn’t complaining. At 57, he’s finally preparing to devote himself full-time to the pursuit that has pulled him back time and again: training Thoroughbreds.
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For nearly 30 years, Maher has balanced life as a horse trainer with a successful legal career specializing in property law. It’s an unusual combination, even by racing standards.
“I’ve done both for quite a long time,” Maher said on the Midlantic Racing Today podcast. “It’s kind of been a difficult thing doing both… they both take a lot of effort.”
That balancing act helps explain why his training career, which began in 2005, has unfolded in fits and starts. Despite never operating a large stable, Maher has compiled 64 victories and nearly $1.5 million in purse earnings. Now, with a buyer “hopefully” lined up for his law practice, he hopes to leave that career behind.
“I just would rather focus on what I enjoy,” he said. “I want to make more of a full go at that going forward.”
Racing has always had a powerful pull.
Maher’s grandfather trained on the old New England fair circuit, and childhood summers spent at tracks like Suffolk Downs and Rockingham Park hooked him for life.
“It was so colorful,” he recalled. “It kind of captured you.”
He came to racing the long way. After working at Kentucky’s Pin Oak Stud while in college, Maher groomed for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott, where one of his charges was future Eclipse Award champion Paradise Creek. He later learned to gallop horses at Bowie before pursuing both law school and a racing career.
His adventures extended well beyond the Mid-Atlantic.
Maher rode amateur races throughout Europe, competing in England, Germany and Scandinavia while absorbing different approaches to horsemanship. He spent a year in Chantilly, France, riding out at one of Europe’s premier training centers and studying methods that still influence his own operation.
“They teach them to be more of an overall horse,” Maher said, noting the emphasis on straight gallops, varied training surfaces and developing confident, adaptable horses.
That philosophy is evident in the way he talks about River Seine, an Irish-bred filly he purchased himself through an online auction after another prospective buyer passed. Rather than focusing solely on speed figures, Maher talks about her attitude.
“I like her mind, and she seems very happy,” he said.
Making horses happy may sound simple, but Maher believes it’s one of a trainer’s greatest responsibilities.
“You can’t really make them any faster,” he said. “But you can make them reach their potential.”
That commitment doesn’t end when a horse leaves the racetrack. Maher still owns Lonely Whistle, a one-eyed gelding he bought for $6,000 as a 2-year-old. After a successful racing career, the horse now teaches children at a Baltimore County riding school.
“There’s a responsibility there to the horse after it stops racing,” Maher said. “You’ve got to try to get them a good home.”
Maher has been pulled away from racing before. Burned out during the pandemic, he sold his house, packed up his dog Buddy and spent months driving across America before living in France for another year.
Yet every road eventually led back to the barn.
Now, with his legal career nearing its finish line and plans to expand his stable through new partnerships, Maher is betting that the next chapter will be his biggest in racing.
For a man who won with the very first horse he ever saddled—a 106-1 shocker at Colonial Downs—the optimism is understandable. But this time, the biggest longshot isn’t a horse.
It’s finally getting to devote himself completely to the life he’s wanted all along.
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