He was a thoroughbred of humble origins with a cantankerous disposition, and he spent the early years of his racing career as a vagabond competing at the bush tracks in Louisiana.
With the odds stacked high against him, John Henry surmounted all of those obstacles to become one of the sport’s superstars at an advanced age for a racehorse.
After he won the Arlington Million for the second time in 1984 at age 9, Arlington Park’s former track announcer, Phil Georgeff, called him “the living legend.”
The “living legend” is no more. John Henry was euthanized Monday at the Kentucky Horse Park outside Lexington, his residence during his 22 years of retirement. He was 32.
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“After continued successful efforts to maintain the quality of John Henry’s life, in the past 48 hours he did not respond to our medical intervention,” said the park’s equine director, Kathy Hopkins. “Due to the loss of kidney function and muscle mass, his veterinarian, Dr. Mike Beyer, found it impossible to keep him properly hydrated and comfortable.
“Our goal has always been to maintain the highest quality of care and life for him, and it became evident that was no longer possible.”
Although John Henry never competed in any of the Triple Crown races and spent a segment of his career in the claiming-race bargain basement, he scored 16 of his 39 victories in 83 starts in Grade I competition. He was voted North America’s Horse of the Year at ages 6 and 9, and he earned five other Eclipse Awards.
Most of his major conquests came in grass races, but he also had some success at the highest level on the dirt.
Verna Lehmann, whose late husband Robert made the match between the $500 stud Ole Bob Bowers and the mare Once Double that produced John Henry, was among those who were with the gelding when he was put to sleep.
He came into the world on the couple’s Golden Chance Farm in Kentucky on March 9, 1975, an undersized and ugly-looking colt with a knee deformity. The following January he was sold for the first time for a measly $1,100. A year later he was resold for $2,200 and his new owner, Harold Snowden, decided to geld him. Then, after a $7,500 sale fell through, he was sold again, this time as part of an $11,000 two-horse package.
On May 20, 1977, John Henry began his racing career and won by a nose in a 4-furlong sprint at Jefferson Downs.
During the next year he continued to race in obscurity, going from owner to owner and trainer to trainer and often appearing in claiming races.
John Henry was sent to California for the winter of 1980, and under trainer Ron McAnally, he became a Hall of Fame racehorse. When he was retired in the summer of 1985 after winning the last four races of his career, his career earnings were $6,597,947, then a world record.
“John Henry was a testament to the fact a horse’s value is far greater than the sum of his pedigree, conformation, sales price and race record,” said Kentucky Horse Park executive director John Nicholson. “Racing has lost a legend, but many people have lost a personal hero. John Henry’s true legacy was written in people’s hearts.”
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