Hall of Famer Margareta Wallenius-Kleberg passes

International harness racing breeder and owner Margareta Wallenius-Kleberg was one of Sweden’s richest women and known to many as the “Queen of Shipping” and “Queen of Trotting” has passed away in Sweden at age 85 on Friday, April 14.

Sweden Expressen has the death confirmed by two of Wallenius-Kleberg’s children.

A strong, creative and wise woman who was also incredibly caring and helpful, the family writes in a statement according to the newspaper.

The first woman to be elected to the Harness Racing Hall of Fame in 2017, Margareta Wallenius-Kleberg was the owner of Menhammar Stuteri AB, a breeding farm located in Ekerö, Sweden, which has been in her family for 70 years.

The farm, purchased in 1947 by her father, shipping magnate Olof Wallenius, has produced an impressive list of notable trotters and has been the leading breeder in her native Sweden for the last eleven years.

With her partner, the late Hall of Famer and Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame trustee Norman Woolworth, Wallenius-Kleberg created a North American-European commingling of racing and breeding talent, headed by such champion horses as two-time U.S. Horse of the Year Mack Lobell, Zoot Suit and Smokin Yankee. Zoot Suit was Sweden’s top sire for six consecutive years (1991-96) and was preceded at the top of the list by Smokin Yankee in 1990.

After Wallenius-Kleberg’s purchase of Zoot Suit from Woolworth, the two trotting devotees developed a bond that opened doors in North America for her burgeoning interests in the sport. Wallenius-Kleberg began keeping and breeding mares in the United States and having fillies trained and raced in North America before they entered the Menhammar broodmare band.

Already a member of Sweden’s Trotting Hall of Fame, Wallenius-Kleberg has held numerous positions in organizations related to the sport in her native country and abroad, working to promote harness racing on both sides of the Atlantic. She was a director of The Hambletonian Society and received the Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame’s Pinnacle Award in 2011 for exemplary efforts put forth in the promotion of the sport and the Museum.

In addition to Menhammar, Wallenius-Kleberg maintained a stable of trotters at Hunterton Farm at Stoner Creek in Paris, Kentucky. She is the former chair of the European Breeders Union and the Stockholm Travsällskap racetrack, Solvalla, home of the Elitlopp, and is also the primary owner of Wallenius Lines, a shipping company founded in 1934 by her father Olof Wallenius in Stockholm. She was the former chair of the Swedish Breeders Association and is an honorary lifetime member of the Swedish Trotting Association.

by Steve Wolf, for Harnesslink, with files from the Harness Racing Hall of Fame