Researching William Stephens

Stephens began his career in racing as his brother's assistant at Royce Martin's Woodvale Farm in Kentucky. However, his career was interrupted during World War II when he served overseas with the United States Army. He resumed his career in racing at war's end and in 1950 succeeded John Nerud as head trainer for Herbert Woolf's Woolford Farm. In 1951 he saddled his first stakes race winner, when Champion Sprinter of 1949 Delegate won the Roseben Handicap at New York City's Belmont Park.

Bill Stephens went on to train for the stable owned by Adele L. Rand. For Mrs. Rand, he most notably conditioned Clem whose important wins included three straight over future Hall of Fame inductee, Round Table. Clem did it first in the September 1, 1958 Washington Park Handicap while setting a new track record time. The colt was then shipped all the way to the East Coast of the United States to the Atlantic City Race Course where on September 13 he set another new track record for a mile and three sixteenths on turf in winning the United Nations Handicap while again defeating Round Table. Clem then beat Round Table for the third time in a row on September 27 in the Woodward Stakes.

In the latter part of the 1960s, Bill Stephens took over from his brother as the trainer for Harry Guggenheim's Cain Hoy Stable. Among his successful Cain Hoy runners was the 1967 Futurity Stakes winner Captain's Gig who set a new Aqueduct track record. In 1958, en route to the Kentucky Derby the lightly raced colt won the Forerunner Purse at Keeneland then the Stepping Stone Purse at Churchill Downs.

Retired from racing, Bill Stephens was living in Franklin Square, New York when he died at age sixty-four of lung cancer at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Brooklyn, New York

Stephens was born in Levens, Westmorland, the son of the Rev. William Stephens, of Heversham, Westmorland, and his wife Alicia, née Daniell. William, junior, was an elder brother of Thomas Stephens. William was educated at Marlborough College, and at The Queen's College, Oxford, where he was scholar from 1848 to 1853; Fellow from 1853 to 1860; Lecturer in 1854; and Tutor from 1855 to 1856.

Professor Stephens, who graduated B.A. in 1852 and M.A. in 1855, accepted the post of headmaster of Sydney Grammar School, and held it for ten years, when he founded The New School (Eaglesfield from 1879), which he conducted with success for fifteen years. He was then appointed Professor of Geology and Palaeontology at the Sydney University, a post which he retained until his death. During the interval which elapsed between the death of Dr. Charles Badham and the appointment of Professor Scott, Professor Stephens took charge of the higher classical work at the University. Among other offices held by him at the time of his death, which took place in Darlinghurst, Sydney on 22 November 1890, were those of Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Free Public Library, Trustee of the Sydney Museum, President of the Linnean Society, President of the Royal Geographical Society, and President of the Zoological Society.Stephens was survived by his wife Anna Louise, née Daniell (married 8 July 1859), a son and a daughter.