Neal Shapiro

Career Shapiro was born in Brooklyn, New York, and is Jewish.

Early career He took up riding by five and started riding horses in shows around 1956, when he was eleven. Shapiro was largely self-taught in his early years, riding at his family’s small farm in Old Brookeville, N.Y., on Long Island. In an interview, Neal noted, “I started competing seriously in 1959 on the Long Island Circuit on a little mare named Buttons.” “At 15, I showed Music Man in Madison Square Garden in 1960.” His career took a giant step for the better when he changed his mount. Shapiro lacked a mount for the 1968 Olympics, but began riding Sloopy by 1970.

Winning competitions Shapiro's Equestrian wins included England's Last Chance Cup and Horse and Hound Cup, the President’s Cup in Washington, the Grand Prix of Harrisburg, the National Horse Show, The Royal Winter Fair and LaBaule, France. Shapiro was the Leading International Rider at the National Horse Show and in 1972 the AHSA named him “Horseman of the Year.”

1972 Olympic medalist He won a silver in the team jumping competition and a bronze medal in show jumping at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. Shapiro was inducted into the United States Show Jumping Hall of Fame in 2010.

After Olympic competition Shapiro and his wife, Suzy, lived on Long Island, where he was a horse owner, and trainer, and continued to drive, and train harness horses.

Harness racing driver-trainer In 1970, Shapiro got his harness racing trainer's license. He needed a year of apprenticeship to compete as a harness racer, but it took him longer as he was travelling often with the United States Equestrian Team in the early 70's.

He continued with harness racing, attending Bavaria Downs in 1980, though he had taken a break from the sport. Shapiro claimed to have given up Equestrian jumping in 1976 at the age of 38 in order to earn a living in another field, and harness racing was an important sideline during that period.

Success training harness horses Around 1977, Shapiro set up shop and built a facility at a Saratoga Springs, in East central New York, at a farm which they named Hay Fever Farm of Clifton Park. Working there as a trainer for 20 years, he trained Bon Vivant, a trotter, to more than $400,000 in earnings and the pacer Bomb Rickles to winnings of more than $500,000.

Success driving harness horses In February 1984 in Pompano Beach, Florida, Shapiro drove two harness horses to wins in the same week at Pompano Park, Plymouth Lobell and Duran Lobell. By 1984, he had won 263 times in his harness racing career, collecting around $1 million in purses. In that year, he had 23 horses at his Hayfever Farms Stable, but only his horse Sunbright was considered a major figure in harness racing. Shapiro believed that in time he could train some of his less recognized horses into becoming winners. In 1996, he entered Midnight Mattness in the tenth race, for the $150,000 John W. Miller Memorial Final, at Pocono Downs.

He returned to the world of show jumpers in 1998, though taking a limited role as a rider in competition. He ended his role as a harness horse trainer that year, giving him thirty years as a successful driver and trainer of harness horses.

Marriage After having known her for forty years, he reconnected with Elisa Fernandez in 2002, formerly known as Elisa Pérez de las Heras. At her third Olympic Games in 1972 in Munich she had competed in equestrian jumping for Mexico. Neal had competed for the US and medaled at the same games. They married in 2002 and began Hayfever Farm in 2007 where they trained and taught students and horses to compete in hunting, jumping, and equitation. They also teach children and non-competition riders and board horses.

In his spare time, Shapiro is a pilot and an organist. He began training as a pilot in his youth and considered a career as a pilot before he was selected for the US Equestrian Team. He is also skilled at shoeing horses. He is the cousin of historian Edward S. Shapiro.