Legendary show jumper and Thoroughbred trainer Rodney Jenkins died in his sleep Thursday Dec. 5, reported the Daily Racing Form. He was 80.

Jenkins grew up on the back of a horse, as his father, Enis Jenkins, was the huntsman for Manly Carter’s private pack in Orange, Virginia, before taking a position at the now-defunct Rapidan Hunt (Virginia). Rodney spent his early years in the hunt field, whipping in for his father, and along with his younger brothers Dale and Larry, helped care for the horses and hounds.

He got his start in the show ring on field hunters as a teenager, and upon graduating high school in 1961 he took a job with Gene Mische, where he showed up and down the East Coast for three years. Afterwards he returned to his family’s farm, where he trained race horses and whipped in in the hunt field.

Rodney continued showing in the hunters, riding for owners such as Peggy Steinman, Kathryn Clark and Mrs. A.C. Randolph. But as the jumper ring became more popular, Rodney found a niche there. He piloted horses such as Idle Dice, Number One Spy, Playback, Coastline, Czar, Gustavus and The Natural to grand prix victories, winning the American Gold Cup three times and the grand prix at the National Horse Show (New York) and Washington International (D.C.) three times each. He rode on 10 winning Nations Cup teams, placed eighth in the 1974 World Championships at Hickstead, England, and earned sixth in the 1980 FEI World Cup Final (Maryland) with Third Man. He won the American Grandprix Association’s Rider of the Year and American Horse Shows Association’s Horseman of the Year awards in 1987.

For much of his career he was unable to ride on Olympic or Pan American Games teams, as the International Olympic Committee restricted the Games to amateur athletes. But when those restrictions were lifted, Rodney rode Czar at the 1987 Pan American Games (Indiana), where he won team and individual silver. 

“There wasn’t a horse he couldn’t ride,” Rodney’s brother Larry told the Chronicle in 2011. “He could change his style of riding to adjust to the horse, and he’d get the best out of all of them. Horses really liked him.”

Rodney was involved in one of the most famous warmblood imports at the time when he and a partner bought The Natural in 1985. Rodney won the American Gold Cup on the gelding before they sold him for a storied $1 million. That horse went on to win the 1987 FEI World Cup Final in Paris with Katherine Burdsall.

Rodney was inducted into both the National Horse Show Hall Of Fame and the Show Jumping Hall Of Fame, and in his 40s, he chose to hang up his show cap. 

“I promised myself that when I got to the point where I didn’t think I was as good as I was, I’d give it up. I wasn’t going to ride until I was old. I felt like the time to get out was when I did,” he told the Chronicle in 2011.

At that point he transitioned to training race horses, first steeplechasers and then on the flat, winning more than $24 million in his career. He was named most outstanding trainer by the Maryland Thoroughbred Horse Association in 2003.

According to the Daily Racing Form, Rodney retired from training earlier this year due to deteriorating health.