Horse Racing Fantasy Community

Ride John Henry in our online racing game, just click here! John Henry had a long and storied career. He did not impress anyone early in his career, and in fact his stock had sunk so low that in his 3-year-old season of 1978 he raced in no less than 5 claiming races. One of the problems was that his early handlers didn't seem to notice that he was first and foremost a turf horse. Indeed, the first 18 races of his career were on dirt courses, most of them at six furlongs. That means that the great gelding spent the first year and a half of his racing career running on a surface that was not his favorite (though he could compete on dirt) and running at distances he never liked.
It took awhile, to be sure, but once people figured out that John Henry was a longer distance horse and that he preferred the turf, things started to improve. His breakthrough season came as a 5-year-old in 1980 when he took home Champion Grass Horse honors, then he won his first Horse of the Year Award, along with Champion Handicap Horse as well as Grass Horse, in 1981 after surprising many by winning the Jockey Club Gold Cup, a race run on dirt, along with nosing out The Bart at the finish of the inaugural Arlington Million.

By any method of measure, John Henry was an old man when he raced in 1984 as 9-year-old. However, he still had plenty of fire left, winning the Arlington Million again, as well as several other major turf races. In what would turn out to be his final career effort, John Henry would travel to the Meadowlands to run in the first-ever Ballantine Handicap, run at a mile and 3/8th's. Very few thoroughbred races are run at night. This race is an exception. Also, notice the exulatation in track announer Dave Johnson's voice as John Henry makes the last of his patented stretch drives for the win. A great moment in the history of racing!