X – #3 – John Henry – horseracing20thcentury99.com

Top Ten Turf Males Twentieth Century

#3

John Henry

(1977 - 1984)

A former $25,000 claimer, John Henry would go on to win 16 Grade One stake races, 13 on turf and three, the Santa Anita Handicap (twice) and the Jockey Club Gold Cup, on dirt.

Photo: Santa Anita Park

PEDIGREE

Bay G

OWNER

Dotsam Stable

TRAINER

Ron McAnally (# others)

BREEDER

Golden Chance Farm

Some Facts

John Henry was born on March 9, 1975, at Golden Chance Farm in Kentucky.
He was sired by Old Bob Bowers, who was sired by the 1961 Hollywood Gold Cup and American Handicap winner Twice Blessed. Ole Bob Bowers won six of thirty starts lifetime, with just a single stake victory, the nine-furlong Tanforan Handicap in 1968 over Deck Hand in 1:46 2/5.
John Henry’s dam was Double Intent, a daughter of Double Jay and Intent One. She won only two of nineteen starts for earnings of $3,123, and John was her only foal of prominence.
John Henry was sold as a yearling for $1,100 to John Calloway and later sold for an unidentified sum to the partnership of D. Lingo and C. Madere. He would eventually be sold, sight unseen, to Sam Rubins for $25,000 and raced in the colors of his Dotsam Racing Stable.
A small horse, John was mean and destructive and was so hard to manage that he was gelded. He made eighty-three career starts of which thirty-two were on dirt and fifty-one on turf. He won eight starts on dirt, including three grade ones.
John Henry did not run on the turf until his nineteenth start when he was three.
He won 15 grade one races, 12 on turf and three on dirt. He ran in 46 graded stakes on turf and dirt and won 25 of them.
John is the only horse to win the Santa Anita handicap twice in the twentieth century.
He won his final four career starts in 1984: the G1 Sunset Handicap, G1 Arlington Million, G1 Turf Classic, and the non-graded $900,000 Scotch Ballantine Classic. He was then considered the morning line favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Turf but had to be declared because of a leg injury that forced his retirement.
John Henry won while carrying 130 pounds on both dirt and turf, winning the 1982 Santa Anita Handicap (finished second by a nose to Perrault but was elevated to first via disqualification after being impeded) and the 1981 Hollywood Invitational Handicap.
He ran on 18 different North American tracks and 19 in total.
John won the Arlington Million twice, in 1981 and again in 1984. He is the only horse to win this race two times. He missed a third victory in 1983 when Tolomeo hung on to defeat him by a neck while receiving eight pounds.
John Henry was named the champion male turf horse a record four times in 1980, 1981, 1983, and 1984. He is the oldest horse to win the coveted Horse of the Year title, which he did as a nine-year-old and is tied for being the oldest horse to win a grade one race. His two HOY titles can be attributed to his record on turf. In 1981, he won seven stakes on turf, and in 1984, six.
John set two track records on turf: the eleven-furlong Golden Gate Handicap at Golden Gate in 2:13, and the nine-furlong Bay Meadows Handicap at Bay Meadows in 1:49 3/5. He also tied two track records on turf: the eleven-furlong Scotch Ballantine Classic at the Meadowlands in 2:13, and the twelve-furlong San Luis Rey Handicap at Santa Anita in 2:23.
During a career in which he also ran in claiming races, he raced under four trainers: Phil Marino, Victor Nickerson, Robert Donato, and Ron McAnally.
John Henry retired as the world’s leading money-winning thoroughbred with earnings of $6,597,947 from eighty-three starts in which he posted a 39-15-9 record. A gelding, he never entered stud.
When his racing career ended in 1984, John Henry was relocated to the Kentucky Horse Park, where he lived until his death at thirty-two, in 2007.