Floral Park’s Toby Sheets, who served as a longtime assistant trainer to hall-of-fame horse trainer Steve Asmussen at Belmont Park, drowned while vacationing in Greece, according to ABC News. He was 55.
Sheets’ body was found Sunday on the Greek Island of Mathraki, where he was vacationing. A Greek coroner determined his cause of death to have been drowning.
“Toby was a part of our stable for many years, including our Belmont Stakes win with Creator, as well as his expert handling of Haynesfield among others,” Asmussen told the Thoroughbred Daily News. “He will be deeply missed by his family and many friends.”
Sheets was a resident of Floral Park for more than 20 years.
The Daily News reported that Sheets’ body had been located on a stretch of beach previously searched. Officials suggested that his body may have been washed out to sea.
Another tourist had found Sheets’ body and reported it to the police, according to CBS.
ABC News reported on Sheets’ cause of death Tuesday, which was provided by Ioannis Aivatidis, the coroner in Corfu, Greece, who performed Sheets’ autopsy.
According to reports, Sheets was last seen alive on Jun 11 and reported missing on June 13.
Sheets was reported missing after a friend had found the door open to his home with the air conditioner running, according to the New York Times.
He was last reported to be seen with two other female tourists at a cafe. The AP reported that the two tourists have since left the island.
Mathraki, where Sheets was vacationing at the time of his death, is a small and quiet Island off the coast of Greece with just shy of 200 residents. It is not considered a popular tourist destination.
Sheets’ death comes amid multiple other tourist disappearances and deaths in Greece coupled with an extreme heat wave washing over the island.
The U.S. Embassy is coordinating to have Sheets’ body returned to the United States, ABC reported.