Ashlee Brnjas, a successful and well-known Thoroughbred trainer who raced horses at Woodbine and Fort Erie, passed away unexpectedly on Saturday, September 25th. She was 40.
Ashlee in her hunter/jumper days.
Ashlee got her start in horses as an active competitor in the hunter/jumper world. After a brief hiatus working in the event planning industry for a few years, she missed the horses and wanted to learn about the thoroughbred racing industry. “I had always been around the racehorses, but not on a professional level,” she told Horse-Canada.com in a 2018 interview, referring to her father John’s Colebrook Farm, a 300-acre facility in Uxbridge, ON, which currently stands seven stallions.
John, a longtime thoroughbred breeder and owner, started her out as a hot-walker at the track, but she was only there for about a month before she was given the entire outfit to train. “At that time I had thirty-two at Woodbine, and Tommy Bowden was running the training center, a lifeline at that point. I was very green and new to the industry. It was literally birth by fire; my Dad said, ‘Here is a stable; figure it out.’”
Ashlee sent out her first horses to race at Woodbine starting in 2007; one of her most notable was Grade I winner Johnny Bear (English Channel – In Return, by Horse Chestnut (SAF)) who won the Northern Dancer Turf S. in 2017 and 2018 and was named 2017 Sovereign Award Champion Turf Male. Her most recent winner was Endorphin Rush, piloted by Justin Stein at Woodbine on Sept. 25th. In her career she sent out 2,852 horses, including 317 winners and purses totalling over $10,600,000.
Ashlee, who had been battling a genetic blood disorder for several years, will be deeply missed by her family, friends, and racing associates.
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