When nothing was going according to plan and it seemed like everything around him was falling apart, Austin Thurman bought a racehorse.
“This filly really did save my little brother,” explained his sister, Lizzie. “He'd always seen how the horses brought joy to my mom and dad. To us growing up, that's always what made them happy, and he saw 'Ellie' and just had to have her.
“You know how you have that horse, that one horse? This is his horse.”
When “Ellie,” racing under the registered name English, broke her maiden on Sept. 16 at Arlington Park with Lizzie in the saddle, Austin could barely contain his excitement. He was proud of the filly, of course, but it also felt like everything in his life was finally coming back together.
“I'm super lucky; blessed, I guess you could say,” said Austin, 22. “She's brought our whole family together. Lizzie's boyfriend helped break her, dad (co-owner Kelly) shoes her, mom (trainer Rhonda) rubs her down every day.
“She's given us back that spark, and now I've got 17 horses here (at Fairmount Park). We've got mares in foal at the farm, young horses… Since she won, I've got another guy bringing us two more horses to train.”
Though the Thurman family has been involved in Illinois racing for over 30 years, Austin didn't grow up in the game. Instead, he spent the majority of his free time in high school working toward becoming an all-state wrestler, with dreams of earning a college scholarship.
That all changed when he broke his neck at age 16. Austin shattered his C6 and C7 vertebrae, and underwent surgery to place four screws and a spacer in his neck.
“It's crazy, but I'm able to ride the pony every day,” Austin said. “The doctors didn't even think I would be able to do that, but I only lost about 10 percent of my mobility.”
Nonetheless, his wrestling career was over. Austin made the best of his situation, and after recovering began flipping cars to pay for his first two years of college. He was studying for a finance degree and had gotten an internship working 38 hours a week for One Main Financial.
It was a solid job, a good potential career, but Austin wasn't happy.
“I was just miserable; it wasn't what I wanted to do,” he said. “When I was in class every day, I was thinking about what I could be doing when I got out of class.”
Austin had started helping his parents around the racetrack in his spare time. Since expanded gaming became legal in Illinois in 2019, the racing industry was beginning to show signs of hope and regrowth. His mother, Rhonda, then a full-time manager at WalMart, reinstated her trainer's license that year, and along with her husband began conditioning a couple horses at the family farm in Collinsville, Ill.
Austin got more involved with the horses, and also helped a woman named Dawn Martin a few days each week. When Martin told Austin she wanted to sell a couple horses, everything clicked in his mind. He suddenly knew what he wanted.
“I had this week where everything wasn't going right with the job and school,” Austin said. “I dropped out of school, quit my job, and bought this filly. I just walked out, and didn't go back.
“I called my dad and asked if he wanted to look at some 2-year-olds Dawn had. English looked like Cox's Ferrara, a filly we had a long time ago. I knew that horse was a runner. We decided to sleep on it. At the time, the project vehicle I was working on was an old Chevy pickup. My dad was in on it with me, so the next day we sold the truck and then went and bought the horse. It all happened in the same week.”
Austin and his father brought “Ellie” home to the farm, and set about starting the English Channel filly under saddle. Lizzie, who'd always wanted to be a jockey and had been working with the family racing stock every day since she was old enough to hold a pitchfork, was the first one on her back.
When Lizzie broke her leg at the track, her boyfriend Javier Diego stepped up to finish getting English ready to race. The filly made her debut at Keeneland in October, but wasn't quite ready mentally and finished at the rear of the field.
Undeterred, Austin and Lizzie worked with her over the winter.
“Austin and I have always said that I'm gonna be the trainer and he's gonna be the owner,” said Lizzie, laughing. “We're best friends, like a year and a half apart. He's my little big brother. Everyone always thought we were twins.”
When they brought English back to the races in March of 2020, she rewarded their efforts with a second-place finish in a maiden special weight at Fairmount Park.
Then COVID-19 hit.
“The only places you could run were Will Rogers Downs or Fonner Park,” Austin recalled. “I hauled her down to Will Rogers a couple of times, and she ran well enough.”
Luck fell the wrong way again in the summer of 2020 when a barn fire at the Thurman farm killed three yearlings and destroyed multiple vehicles and most of their equipment. The racing stock was at Fairmount Park at the time, thankfully, but the fire was still a huge hit, both emotionally and financially.
Through the rest of the year, Austin hauled English around the Midwest to run her about once a month. She kept running well, hitting the board fairly often but never quite getting the job done.
“She's been pretty honest with me,” said Lizzie, who's piloted English for most of her starts. “She's always trying, and right there, but the racing gods were never with us.”
When 2021 rolled around, the Thurman family was fully invested in horse racing once again. They had mares in foal for the first time in years, and once again sent horses to Fairmount Park, now Fanduel Sportsbook and Horse Racing, with Austin at the helm as assistant trainer.
Lizzie, meanwhile, took a job riding for trainer Steve Asmussen in Indiana along with her boyfriend. Still, every time English ran, Lizzie came back to meet her brother in the paddock wearing the family silks.
The Thurman family at Fairmount Park
The Thurmans got their first win since 2017 in August of 2021, when Rejoice an Be Glad hit the winner's circle at Fairmount, but Lizzie wasn't able to ride that day. When English followed suit about a month later at Arlington, getting it done in her 19th career start, Lizzie was in the saddle.
“It was my first win for Mom and Dad, and at Arlington,” Lizzie said. “I've won one other race there, but always wanted to win one for mom and dad there. It hit home a little more.”
Reflecting on that winner's circle moment, Austin could hardly contain his pride in his filly.
“Every time she runs, we thought she was going to win,” he said. “She'd been knocking on the door, but finally got it done. She's like my 1200-lb dog, and she just never quits trying for me.”
Lizzie echoed her brother's sentiments about English.
“She is a very sassy drama queen but we all love her,” she said. “It's funny because she's so full of herself, and it's just Austin's horse.
“She gave us that little bit of hope when we needed it, you know? She's a cool little filly.”
For Austin, English's win represents success beyond just the racetrack. He enjoys getting up in the mornings, spends all his free time at the barn with his horses, and is as hands-on as possible with 17 head under his care. He rides the pony to the track every day to watch his horses train, learning as much as possible from his parents along the way, and he truly can't imagine doing anything else with his life.
The Thurman family has since added another victory to their 2021 tally, building momentum for the future. Austin truly seems to have found his calling, thanks in large part to “Ellie.”
“You just can't make it up,” Austin said, laughing. “We're just the little guy with a few horses in Illinois, but we're in the winner's circle.”
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