Born: April 21, 1956
Birthplace: Gilmer, TX
Residence: Louisville, KY
Family: Wife, Laura; son, Will; daughter Heather
Started training: 1978, HollywoodPark
First Win: 1978, I’m Smokin, Hollywood Park
Circuit: Tampa Bay Downs, Churchill Downs, Del Mar, Fairgrounds
|
Year
|
Starts
|
1st
|
2nd
|
3rd
|
Earnings
|
W rank
|
W %
|
ITM %
|
|
2008-2009 meet
|
103
|
17
|
17
|
17
|
$258,186
|
9th
|
16.5%
|
49.5%
|
|
2007-2008 meet
|
104
|
22
|
16
|
11
|
$306,050
|
4th
|
21.2%
|
471.%
|
|
2006-2007 meet
|
69
|
24
|
9
|
9
|
$412,886
|
4th
|
34.8%
|
60.8%
|
|
2005-2006 meet
|
82
|
15
|
10
|
13
|
$200,116
|
9th
|
18%
|
46%
|
|
2004-2005 meet
|
51
|
19
|
14
|
6
|
$353,613
|
4th
|
37.2%
|
76.4%
|
|
2003-2004 meet
|
33
|
12
|
12
|
1
|
$243,078
|
n/a
|
36.4%
|
75.8%
|
|
2002-2003 meet
|
37
|
12
|
5
|
8
|
$155,952
|
n/a
|
32.4%
|
67.6%
|
|
2001-2002 meet
|
25
|
15
|
5
|
3
|
$141,036
|
6th
|
60.0%
|
84.0%
|
Thomas Proctor’s barn has been a model of consistency since he began his training career. Tampa Bay Downs's 83rd season found Proctor as the ninth leading trainer overall with 17 victories to his credit. In the past, Proctor had conditioned Glen Hill Farm’s homebred One Dreamer, the 47-1 long shot winner of the 1994 $1 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff (Grade I); One Dreamer won 12 of 25 career starts and earned $1,265,967. She scored six other stakes wins in addition to the BC Distaff. Proctor has trained two Eclipse Award winners: Sky Beauty (1994 Champion Older Female) and Hollywood Wildcat (’93 Champion Three-Year-Old Filly). He considers I’m Smokin one of his best horses: the California-bred won 14 of 44 career starts, including three stakes and earned $326,395. Del Mar named a $100,000 stakes test after the swift sprinter in 1991.
Proctor says that his favorite horse at Tampa Bay Downs is House Account, a horse he trained in the 1980s who won his first race here; after breaking his maiden, House Account went on to win the Tampa Bay Juvenile as well as the Sam F. Davis Stakes. Proctor says, “He won going a quarter of a mile as a two year old and kept running until he was eleven or twelve years old.” When asked if he could pinpoint a favorite moment at Tampa Bay Downs, Proctor says, “I’ve had so many of them, I can’t pick one!”