Nick Zito trained champions Storm Song and Bird Town   (National Museum of Racing)

Trainer Nick Zito and three steeplechase stars, jockey Thomas Walsh, trainer Sidney Watters Jr. and five-time champion LONESOME GLORY, comprise the 2005 inductees into the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame.

The four new members will be formally inducted on August 8 at the Fasig-Tipton Sales Pavilion in Saratoga Springs, New York. The public ceremonies begin at 10:30 a.m. (EDT).

Zito, a two-time winner of the Kentucky Derby (G1), has won the Preakness S. (G1), Belmont S. (G1) and 20 other Grade 1 races in a career that began in 1972. Through Memorial Day, the New York City native has recorded 1,410 victories -- 83 of them in graded stakes. His horses have earned more than $69.3 million in purse money.

Watters, who also was a top trainer of flat horses, led or shared the lead in steeplechase victories six times between 1948 and 1971. He led steeplechase trainers in purse money won three times.

During his 12-year career as a steeplechase rider, Walsh recorded 253 victories, fifth on the all-time list. He won the prestigious Grand National Steeplechase a record five consecutive years. Walsh was a two-time leading steeplechase jockey in races won twice and the regular rider of champions Barnaby's Bluff, Bon Nouvel and Mako.

Lonesome Glory, a son of Transworld raced by the late Mrs. Walter Jeffords Jr., won 24 of 44 career starts between 1991 and 1999 and is the leading money-earning horse in steeplechase history with $1.4 million.

Sidney Watters was both a famed trainer and jockey of steeplechase horses  (National Museum of Racing)

In 1991, Zito won his first Kentucky Derby with Strike the Gold, and he garnered his second with Go for Gin in 1994. He saddled Louis Quatorze, who equaled the stakes record when winning the 1996 Preakness. Last year, Birdstone gave Zito his first Belmont victory while defeating Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Smarty Jones in the process. Two months later, Birdstone won the Travers S. (G1) at Saratoga.

Zito has trained two champions: Storm Song in 1996 and Bird Town in 2003.

"It's very gratifying, but more important, I'm very humbled by it," Zito said of his induction into the Hall of Fame. "I don't know what else to say. I absolutely really appreciate it. That's the main thing."

Watters, 87, is retired and lives on his farm in Monkton, Maryland.

His father and uncle were amateur steeplechase riders in their youth and Watters followed them into the sport. He won about 50 races between 1935 and 1941 before turning to training for Richard Mellon. After flying some 40 missions as a gunner on a B-24 in the Pacific Theatre during World War II, Watters resumed training on a full-time basis, again for Mellon.

Lonesome Glory was named champion steeplechaser five times  (National Museum of Racing)

As a youth, Walsh visited his uncle's training center in Southern Pines, North Carolina, and learned how to school horses. He said he made his riding debut at the Stoneybrook Hunt Meet in 1956. Walsh quit riding when he was 27 years old in 1967, and turned to training the following year. He is most proud of his five-year streak in the Grand National.

"Nobody had ever done it or ever will," Walsh said. "It's like winning five Kentucky Derbies in a row."

Lonesome Glory won his first of a record five steeplechase titles as a four-year-old in 1992, a season that concluded with a victory over hurdles at Cheltenham in England. The chestnut earned his final Eclipse Award at age 11 in 1999 after winning his only two starts that season -- the Carolina Cup Steeplechase S. (NSA-G1) in Camden, South Carolina, and the Royal Chase for the Sport of Kings S. (NSA-G1) at Keeneland. Overall, he won 19 jump races, 17 in the United States and two in England, from 35 starts and was the first steeplechase horse to earn more than $1 million.

"We were lucky to have him as long as we did," said Mrs. Jeffords' daughter, Sally Jeffords Radcliffe. "He was a very intelligent horse. He only won by as much as he needed to. He was very smart. He never overextended himself."

Three years into his retirement, Lonesome Glory injured himself in a stall accident at trainer F. Bruce Miller's farm. When efforts failed to repair a broken bone in his left hind leg, he was euthanized on February 25, 2002. He was 14.