The Blood-Horse Magazine

has some photo galleries up, including one each honoring the late champions John Henry and George Washington.

As the World Turns.

The Darren Mack trial officially began with defense lawyers trying to use the insanity excuse for his murderous behavior.

The excuses are drugs, and, get this, "self defense," i.e., it was all his slain wife's fault he killed her:

Defense attorneys painted Charla as a physically and verbally abusive wife. Her own step-grandmother, whom Mack believed to be clairvoyant, predicted Charla would one day stab her husband and that prediction prompted him to start carrying around a knife, his lawyers said.

Freeman said Mack had loved his wife so unconditionally that he allowed her to have sex with other men and women so that she could satisfy her sexual appetite.

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A miniature horse was killed by two pit bulls on the loose.

This just makes me sick:

A miniature horse given to a boy with brain cancer by the Make-A-Wish Foundation was killed by a pair of pit bulls who were found roaming in his yard, authorities said.

The 31-inch tall horse, Anniversary, was donated by the foundation to 3-year-old Christian Vasquez in late August.

Christian, who was diagnosed in January with a malignant form of brain cancer, received a pull cart, a blanket, a halter and a bridle set from the foundation on Saturday, said Jelaine Workman, executive director for the foundation's Amarillo chapter.

This is what happens when a guilty-as-sin defendant has no case at all but thinks he can beat the system. The victim is the one who is on trial.

We saw this in the O.J. Simpson trial, and we saw this in the Robert Blake trial, and this tactic is used all the time in lesser known cases.
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A few pictures of the recent John Henry memorial service can be found here on this fan site.
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I am about to hit the sack, but I have been listening to some of my vintage favorite recordings of the 50s and 60s, when I came across this old Ebony article from 1998 of an interview with the "real" widow of famed doo wop singer Frankie Lymon (1942-1968). As you may recall, there was a big court battle over the rights to his biggest hit, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love," and three women claimed they all had been married to Lymon.

The dispute was made into a movie.

Lymon was one of my all-time favorites. I love doo wop.

I thought the article was worth posting a link from this blog.
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John Henry

was honored today at a memorial service at the Kentucky Horse Park, where the racing great lived out his days following his retirement from the track.

About 500 people were at the service, including Judy Gadwood:

Judy Gadwood never saw John Henry race.

She never saw him flex that 251/2-foot stride in person, never stood in the grandstand cheering as he willed himself across the finish line.

That Gadwood learned of the legendary gelding long after he had beaten his last foe into submission didn't matter to the Burbank, Calif., resident.

It wasn't enough to keep her from falling head over heels in love with the diminutive old warrior -- or to stave off the tears yesterday.

"My introduction to John Henry was through my late husband, John, who passed away in 1991," said Gadwood, clutching her John Henry photo against her John Henry T-shirt. "Little did I know what I was in for, because that little horse got into my heart and never left.

"I came here for my birthday Oct. 8th, the day they euthanized him, and then I came back this week for his funeral. That's how much he means to me. He's like family now."

Guess What

I am going to be ordering?

A memorial to the champion is planned:

“John Henry was special to the park, he was special to racing, and his story is just a great one, regardless of whether you are into racing or not,” said Oster in a release. Oster has been a park volunteer the past 10 years and was one of John’s primary caretakers. “He was the people’s horse, he was a blue-collar horse, he didn’t have a lot of breeding, and he overcame every obstacle he ever had in his life.”

Oster said the idea of a memorial has been in the works since 2002, when John Henry nearly succumbed to colic and underwent surgery.

"At first I thought we needed to do something very grand," said Oster. "But then, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that any memorial needed to be unpretentious and simple, just like John was himself.”

The memorial, pending approval from the park commission, will consist of a landscaped sitting area outside John’s former paddock at the Horse Park’s Hall of Champions and will include an understated monument to be sculpted by local equine artist Shelley Hunter.

Here

is a blog devoted to the late, great John Henry, with lots of recent photographs of the champ.

Fans visited his gravesite today.

The champion is now a legend:

With John Henry's death has passed an era in thoroughbred racing that probably never will be duplicated. John Henry was the final survivor of a triumvirate of renowned geldings -- Kelso and Forego were the others -- who ruled the tracks from the 1960s through the 1980s.

These three geldings made their careers under conditions that no longer are imposed on racehorses. They carried high weight assignments, sometimes more than 130 pounds, while also setting track records.

All three were so durable that they returned year after year to successfully race against horses a fraction of their ages. John Henry surpassed the others in this, becoming one of only two horses ever to win a major stakes at the advanced age of 9.

Kelso, five times Horse of the Year, was the first of this amazing trio. He was a formidable competitor during the early 1960s and is consistently rated in the top five on lists of the greatest horses of all time, behind such horses as Man o' War, Secretariat and Citation.

Then came Forego, three times Horse of the Year during the 1970s. Forego once carried 137 pounds while spotting 18 pounds to the younger Honest Pleasure and 28 pounds to some others when winning the 1976 Marlboro Cup.

He was retired in 1978 and eventually moved to the Kentucky Horse Park, where he died in 1997.

John Henry dominated the early 1980s. His durability was such that he seemed like he would race forever. Racing fans loved him for this.

Here's Another Race

of the great John Henry, this one the 1981 Jockey Club Gold Cup. Marshall Cassidy called the race.

John Henry was as good on the dirt as he was on the grass:

The Thoroughbred Times

as an obit of the champ:

Robert Donato, Phil Marino, and Hal Snowden Jr. also trained John Henry, who was voted racehorse of the decade for the 1980s.

“John always had fire in his eyes as he circled his opponents in the paddock while they pranced, his eyes glazed with determination to win,” said Tom Levinson, Sam Rubin’s stepson. “Certainly, he was the people’s hero. …Sam and Dorothy loved sharing John’s victories with his adoring fans, and we appreciate their devotion even to this sad day.

“We are sure that if Sam Rubin were here today, he and my mother, Dorothy, would agree that their wish would be for John Henry to be remembered as the mighty, cantankerous champion we all loved.”

His memorial is on Find a Grave.

John Henry was indeed racing's ambassador.

As promised, here are a few pictures of John Henry, taken at the Kentucky Horse Park on July 30, 1989.

Here is More

about the late, great John Henry.

A guestbook is also there.

Like the redwoods, the champ seemed eternal. Although he was 32 years old and in poor health in recent months, it was still a shock to hear of his death.

It truly was the end of an era.

This is John Henry's

last race, the 1984 the Ballantine Scotch Classic:

And for Your Enjoyment

this is the inaugural running of the Arlington Million, courtesy of a fan on YouTube. Phil Georgeff called the race, and he did a magnificent job:



John Henry was the last of the great racehorses foaled in 1970s. He was foaled in 1975, the same year Affirmed and Alydar were foaled.

The AP

also has an article about him.

The Rubins bought John Henry sight unseen for 25 grand. He was trained by Ron McAnally for much of his career.

I like this:

He soon became known more for his disposition than his racing ability, often tearing buckets and tubs off the wall of his stall and stomping them flat.

This is the statue at Arlington Park, which I pulled off the web.

One of the All-Time Greats

in thoroughbred racing, John Henry, had to be put down. He was 32 years old, very old for a thoroughbred, and truly an iron horse.

John Henry, as noted recently on this blog, had some health setbacks, and it got to the point where his quality of life was poor:

“The mighty heart of the great John Henry has, at long last, yielded to time," expressed John Nicholson, executive director of the Horse Park. "The racing industry has lost a legend, but more significantly, many people have lost a personal hero. John Henry’s true legacy was written in people’s hearts far more indelibly than his superlative racing career could ever reflect.

“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," Nicholson said.

The sad, but unanimous, decision was reached by a team of people who knew him best.

The park’s equine director, Kathy Hopkins stated, “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. 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.

"Over the years, our goal has always been to maintain the highest quality of care and life for him, and it became evident over the weekend that this was no longer possible. Our hearts go out to all of those who so deeply cared for John during his long and charismatic life.”

John Henry went peacefully to sleep surrounded by a small circle of friends who were closest to him, including Cathy Roby, who has been his friend and caretaker for 16 years and his breeder, Verna Lehmann.

John Henry's story was one of the great racing sagas of all time. His sire was a nothing sire, Old Bob Bowers, and the gelding himself was sold as $1,100 yearling, if I remember correctly. I believe he went through a couple of owners before bicycle businessman Sam Rubin bought him for around $25,000. The horse won 39 of 83 races, including the inaugural running of the Arlington Million in an unforgettable stretch run with a horse named The Bart (and memorialized in a statue there), and ended up winning $6,591,860. The great gelding raced until he was nine.

John Henry was gelded, but he still had a rotten disposition. When I visited him at the Kentucky Horse Park back in 1989, the day before I saw Secretariat, his stall was next to racing great Forego's, and both of the doors were screened so people would not be tempted to pet either horse. Despite his surly temperament, he was quite a ham when paraded in front of the many fans who saw him daily.

Several years ago I posted pictures of him at the park, and if I remember tonight I'll try to scan and upload those pictures again.

John Henry was also a very small horse, not much over 15 hands high if that, and he was certainly dwarfed by the giant-sized Forego, one of the tallest horses I have ever seen.

From the Kentucky Horse Park page, some statistics:

* Voted 7 Eclipse Awards
* Voted Horse of the Year 1981 and 1984
* Only horse to win Horse of the Year more than once but not in consecutive years
* Voted Champion Older Horse 1981
* Oldest horse to win Horse of the Year - at age 9
* Oldest horse to win a Grade 1 race - at age 9
* Voted Champion Turf Horse - 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984
* Won 30 stakes races
* Only horse to win the Arlington Million(G1) twice - 1981 & 1984
* Only horse to win the Santa Anita Handicap(G1) twice - 1981 & 1982
* Won more grade stakes than any other Thoroughbred - 25
* Voted Racehorse of the Decade for the 1980s
* Still the richest gelding of any breed in history
* Retired as the world's richest thoroughbred - July 28, 1985
* Inducted into Racing's Hall of Fame in 1990
* Voted 23rd best racehorse of the 20th Century

A Writer and His Kid

spent some time recently visiting racing great John Henry, 32, who has had some recent health scares.

Racing Champion

John Henry has had some health scares as of late:

John gave his caretakers a scare when blood tests showed elevated levels of blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and creatinine, indicating potential kidney problems. He was treated with intravenous fluids from Sept. 12-15, but more recent bloodwork has shown an improvement, and his handlers are now taking it a day at a time.

John Henry has had three good days in a row, but Roby is quick to caution that he's not out of the woods.

"You know it's inevitable, but you want to make sure it's not premature," Roby said. "If he gets to the point that he's miserable or suffering, the decision will be made. We've always hoped he'd make the decision for us.”

For now, John is being pampered, is allowed to eat whatever he wants (including doughnut holes, cookies, and chocolate candy), and is enjoying a constant supply of fresh, cold water.

"We're giving him anything he'll eat," Roby said. "At this point, it's not going to hurt him."

Tomorrow marks the 32nd birthday of two-time Horse of the Year John Henry. He's still going strong, and is "mean and nasty as ever," according to the article.

It's unusual for thoroughbreds to live past the age of thirty. The oldest famous thoroughbred I can think of is Gallant Man, winner of the 1957 Belmont Stakes, who lived to the ripe old age of 34 before he died in 1988.

I visited John Henry at the Kentucky Horse Park near Lexington back in 1989, when he was only fourteen years old. His stall was next to Forego's. I remember how they had what looked like chicken wire on the stalls, to prevent people from trying to feed them. John Henry was and is a tiny horse, while Forego (1970-1997) was huge at around 18 hands high.

I was so lucky to see him, Forego, and so many other racing greats. My timing was just right then.