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Sheila Laxon
Sheila was born in Wales, Great Britain. Living in Kent she was involved with ponies from a very early age. She competed in showjumping, eventing etc. and represented Great Britain in a Junior Showjumping Team in France. She rode out for a local trainer from 12 years of age. Sheila left school with 9 'O' Levels and went to college, firstly to do 'A' Levels and then a Secretarial course. She worked in various office jobs learning skills in business management which stand her in good stead today at JSL Racing, as well as continuing riding competition horses and track work.
Sheila married Tim Skinner and they farmed, milking cows, raising calves and pretraining racehorses. She obtained an HGV Class I licence (33rd female in the UK to get one) and a PSV bus licence. She began driving buses for a summer, worked on the hovercraft, separated and went into pretraining racehorses. She rode work for John Dunlop, and became racing secretary for Derek Kent (also riding work for him). Sheila then tried to get an Amateur Licence to ride in races in England and then went and worked in Cyprus in an attempt to get a jockey's licence.
Next she went to New Zealand where she did get an Amateur Licence. She was then able to ride in Steeple Chases, Hurdle races and on the flat against professional jockeys. Out of her first nine rides Sheila won her first race and three others.
Sheila married Laurie Laxon, a New Zealand trainer, and they had two children, John and Lucy. She rode in races for about the next 10 years. She was then severely injured in race fall. Recovering from her injuries, Sheila became an 'A' trainer in 1997 and took over Laurie's team in 1999, when he went to Singapore. She won the Filly of The Year with Sarwatch that season. The New Zealand and Queensland Oaks, the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups in 2001 and the BMW in 2002 (five GR I races).
After her great sucess in Melbourne, Sheila moved to Australia in 2002, where she was again severely injured in fall from a horse she was training at Macedon Lodge and unable to do very much for eighteen months. She eventually recovered enough to ride again and started back training in own name until 2006, when partnerships were allowed in Victoria. John and Sheila then became a training partnership at their newly established and extremely costly premises, at Hall Lane, Whitehead's Creek, in Seymour.
Sheila has never had any charges made against her as a jockey or trainer and is vehemently challenging the rule which provides for pre race urine testing to be done, when only post race analysis has been studied at length and the threshold set. Any urine testing should only, therefore, be done post race and blood testing should be used for any pre race sampling.
Sheila would never use prohibited drugs on her race horses and rarely uses drugs at all, as Maxine Brain, her vet, will testify. The establishment and future of the JSL Racing Complex would never be compromised in this way.
On Melbourne Cup day in November 2001, Sheila Laxon became the first Female Trainer to win the prestigious 3.6 Million dollar race and became part of racing history.
By winning the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups double, Ethereal became only the third Mare in history to achieve this remarkable feat.
Sheila has always been passionate about horses and to earn her living training them for racing has been a dream come true. Sheila knows it's possible to win another Melbourne Cup, this is why she keeps looking for the horse possessing the unique qualities of mind and body that were so embodied in Ethereal. Sheila is constantly on the lookout for new owners who want to live the dream as well. Sheila has trained well over eighty winners in New Zealand and Australia. These include five Group 1 races, four with Ethereal in Australia and one with a horse by the name of Tapildo, which won the New Zealand Oaks.
Sheila and Partner John Symons have set up a magnificent Training Facility at Seymour.
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