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John Henry
John Henry, the man, was a real-life railroad worker who became a legend. Born in slavery in the late 1830s or early 1840s, Henry was among the crew working on the C&O railroad tunnel at Big Bend Mountain near Hinton, West Virginia, in the Reconstruction period when a salesman came through hawking one of the newly invented steam drills. The drill, he said, could outwork any man and save labor costs by reducing the number of men needed to bore the tunnel. Henry, though, wasn’t about to take this threat to his job sitting down. Whether on his own initiative or at his crew captain’s instigation (the available accounts vary), he challenged the steam drill to a tunneling race to prove which was the better -- man or machine. Swinging his hammer and driving as fast as his shaker could clear rock fragments and turn the manual drill bit, John Henry bored fourteen feet to the steam drill’s nine before the machine broke down. But the effort broke John Henry, who collapsed and died immediately following his victory. The railroads lost a top-class worker, and American folklore gained its first African-American hero. John Henry, the horse, could not have been better named. As blue-collar as his namesake hero, he rose from obscurity to the pinnacle of Thoroughbred racing through sheer hard work, grit, and incredible determination -- and a stroke or two of luck along the way. Certainly, no one would have picked John Henry as a future champion when he was foaled at Golden Chance Farm in Kentucky in the spring of 1975. His sire, Ole Bob Bowers, was no great shakes as a racehorse or sire; prior to John Henry’s birth, Ole Bob Bowers’ one moment of distinction had come in the 1968 Tanforan Handicap, when he equaled the world record for a mile and an eighth. Worse, Old Bob Bowers was also a dangerous rogue. As for Once Double, the dam of the future champion, she was even less distinguished, winning only two races from nineteen starts. On top of his indifferent pedigree, John Henry had bad knees, was on the small side and scrawny, and proved to be possessed of an outstandingly ugly temperament. John Henry went to the auction ring as a yearling with few expectations. Thanks to a bloodied head he gave himself the night before the sale while indulging in fractious behavior, he may have sunk below even those, fetching only $1,100 on a bid by John Callaway. Callaway soon found that while his new acquisition was manageable if allowed to run loose in a paddock, he was an unholy terror if confined to a stall. He would bite and kick at anyone who dared enter his territory, and just to add an additional quirk, he developed a distaste for metal drinking buckets, stomping several flat before Callaway gave up and started substituting plastic tubs. According to several accounts, John Henry’s habit of destroying metal tubs and pails was the origin of his name, since his namesake was known in ballads as a “steel-drivin’ man.“ Despite his temperament, John Henry’s price improved to $2,200 at the 1977 Keeneland January sale. His purchaser was Harold Snowden, Jr., who had the aggressive animal castrated in a last ditch attempt to make him more manageable. He then sold the horse for $10,000 to a partnership headed by trainer Phil Marino. The little gelding won three of eleven starts at two while racing in Louisiana, including the Lafayette Futurity, and earned $49,380, a pretty fair return on his purchase price. He also proved himself to be a tough competitor both mentally and physically, surviving a spectacular spill over a fallen runner while racing at Jefferson Downs to come back a week later and win. Although John Henry had already done more than anyone probably expected of him during his trips through the sales ring, he still wasn’t getting much respect. In truth, he was ill-suited to the Louisiana racing circuit, which was centered then and now around sprint races on dirt. His former owner, Harold Snowden, watched him lose three claiming races for tags of $25,000 or less at the spring Fair Grounds meeting in 1978 before repurchasing the horse and giving him a little time off. He then ran the horse once at Keeneland and sold the gelding sight unseen to bicycle importer Sam Rubin for $25,000, breaking even on the transaction according to most reports. John Henry won his first race for his new owner, a $25,000 claimer at Aqueduct. His next start proved to be the break he needed. Started on turf for the first time in a $35,000 claimer, he clearly relished the surface, winning by fourteen lengths. Daily Racing Form columnist Irwin Cohen later stated that the tip to run him on grass came from, of all people, the binocular rental man at the Belmont clubhouse. Wherever the idea to switch John Henry to the grass came from, it was a good one. John Henry was never risked for a claiming tag again, and before his three-year-old season was out, he had won the Round Table Handicap (gr. III) at Arlington International Racecourse and run a close second behind that year’s champion grass male, Mac Diarmida, in the Lexington Handicap (gr. II) at Belmont. He had also collected four other stakes placings and earned $120,319 for the season, more than tripling his lifetime earnings. The tough gelding was a stakes winner again at four but did not seem to move forward off his three-year-old form, nor did he win any graded events. But in the fall of 1979, John Henry got his second stroke of luck when Sam Rubin started thinking about moving the gelding out to California. At the time, John Henry was being trained by Lefty Nickerson, who recommended his friend Ron McAnally as the gelding’s new trainer. (As things worked out, McAnally and Nickerson ended up splitting John Henry’s training in 1980, with McAnally handling the horse in California and Nickerson taking him back over when the horse was in New York. In a nice piece of sportsmanship and friendship, the two trainers also split the trainer’s share on every winning purse John Henry took down for the remainder of his career.) McAnally wasn’t exactly enamored with John Henry on first sight, finding him plain-looking, light-boned, and nasty. But after watching the horse practically step right off the plane to finish a game second in the Carleton F. Burke Handicap (gr. IIT), he thought he might have something a bit more than ordinary. So he set about winning the horse’s trust, giving him lots of attention and affection. John Henry didn’t exactly become a lapdog, but he started showing more respect for McAnally and for his groom, Jose Mercado. And he started running harder, finishing out the year with a win in the Henry P. Russell Handicap and a good second in the Bay Meadows Handicap. That was just a warmup for 1980, when John Henry had his best season yet. He won eight of his twelve races that year, never finishing out of the money, and his victories included four grade I turf races: the San Luis Rey Stakes, the San Juan Capistrano Handicap, the Hollywood Invitational Handicap, and the Oak Tree Invitational Handicap. In the last-named race, John Henry equaled the then-extant world record of 2:23 for a mile and one-half, and he was named the year’s champion grass male. As far as the former claimer had risen, he wasn’t done yet. In 1981, John Henry won eight of ten races. Running on both turf and dirt, his conquests included the Santa Anita Handicap (gr. I), the San Luis Rey Stakes (gr. IT), the Hollywood Invitational Handicap (gr. IT), the Oak Tree Invitational Stakes (gr. IT), the Jockey Club Gold Cup (gr. I), and the Arlington Million Invitational. The last-named race was not graded in 1981 (it later became a grade I event), but by many of old John’s admirers, it is still considered to be his greatest race. Nothing in the Million was in John Henry’s favor. Heavy rains had softened the course far past the firm going old John preferred, and he had drawn the far outside post to boot. The gelding had trouble finding his stride over the soggy course and rounded the far turn well behind longshot The Bart, who had stolen a long lead and looked to be home free. But John Henry had finally found a little better footing, and he didn’t know he was hopelessly beaten. His legs churning relentlessly, his trademark sheepskin nose roll bobbing up and down at a frenzied pace, the determined gelding cut into The Bart‘s lead with every stride. The finish was so close that not only was jockey Bill Shoemaker convinced he’d been beaten, but NBC made the wrong call as well, much to the network’s embarrassment when the official results went up. One jump from home, The Bart’s head still showed in front. One jump past the wire, and again The Bart’s nose showed first. But somehow, in the crucial stride that took both horses past the wire, John Henry got his nose in front. Today, a bronze statue at Arlington, titled “Against All Odds,” memorializes John Henry’s impossible victory. John Henry won titles as champion grass male, champion older male, and Horse of the Year for his 1981 campaign, and he also became the first racehorse to top $3 million in earnings. He was beset by minor injuries for much of the next two years, however, and in 1982 he raced only six times, winning twice. His victories were good ones -- repeat scores in the Santa Anita and Oak Tree Invitational handicaps -- but they were not enough to attain championship status, and after an unplaced finish in the Japan Cup, he was away from the races for seven months. He also won but twice in 1983, taking the Hollywood Invitational Turf Cup (gr. IT) and the American Handicap (gr. IIT), but he ran good seconds in the Budweiser Invitational (gr. IT) and the Oak Tree Invitational Stakes (gr. IT), and in the absence of another dominant turf male, his two wins and two seconds from five starts were enough to secure a third title as champion grass male. Father Time normally takes a long lead on most Thoroughbreds by age nine, but as with his race against The Bart, once again John Henry didn’t know when to quit. With his physical problems for the most part resolved, the ageless wonder turned in one of his best seasons, winning six of nine starts and running out of the money only once. His victories included four grade I turf races: a second edition of the Arlington Invitational, the Turf Classic Stakes, the Hollywood Invitational Handicap, and the Sunset Handicap. John Henry did not run in the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Turf (gr. IT) due to injury, but in one of the closest Eclipse Award votes ever, he edged out champion older male Slew o’ Gold for Horse of the Year, becoming the oldest horse ever to be awarded North American racing’s highest honor. He also won his fourth title as champion grass horse. With nothing more to prove and his aging legs showing signs of wear, John Henry was finally retired to the Kentucky Horse Park in 1985. A brief flirtation with a comeback in 1986 ended with a suspensory injury to his right foreleg, and old John lived out his retirement years in the Hall of Champions, where he shared barn space with luminaries such as Forego, 1976 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner Bold Forbes and, more recently, two-time Horse of the Year Cigar. Even in his old age, he was still a nasty customer who bore constant watching until his death on October 8, 2007. Persistent rumors had it that the real John Henry died some years earlier and was replaced by a lookalike, but as one anonymous Horse Park worker said, “If that was the truth, don’t you think we’d have replaced him with something nicer?” One final honor came John Henry’s way in 1990 when, together with his old trainer Ron McAnally, he entered the Racing Hall of Fame. The world’s leading money winner at the time of his retirement, the little gelding that nobody wanted ended his career with thirty-nine wins (sixteen in grade I races), fifteen seconds, and twelve thirds from eighty-three starts. John Henry, an iron horse named for an iron man, is indeed an American legend. |
