Two-time Horse of the Year John Henry
Sired by Ole Bob Bowers and out of Once Double, by Double Jay, the modestly bred John Henry sold for $1,100 as a yearling – less than half the average price of his sire’s yearlings. He acquired his name because of his habit of yanking feed buckets from the wall and stomping them flat, which called to mind the folk song about John Henry the “steel-driving man.”
In 1998, I talked with trainer Bob Donato, who bought John Henry as a 3-year-old for the late Sam Rubin, moved him over to the turf, gave him more ground and laid the foundation for a legend. When Donato and Rubin parted ways, Ron McAnally saddled John Henry for his major wins.
“He was not a big horse, but he was a really nice, well-balanced horse, and a good, good mover,” Donato said. “I remembered a horse in New York that beat John Henry at the Fairgrounds by three or four lengths, and (the New York horse) won for $50,000 (claiming price), so I thought if that’s any indication, he’s sure worth the $25,000 they wanted for him.”
John Henry went on to win more than $6.5 million.
“He was really a rough horse,” Donato went on. “I think that’s why he had five owners and trainers before I had him. I found out real quick. When I got back to New York and walked in the stall the first day, he ran me right out of there. He just wheeled and fired both hind feet at me, and I ducked under the webbing.
“I really worked with him and let him get his confidence up, and each day and week that went by, he got a little bit better. He was very intelligent and he picked everything up quick.
“His main thing was walking out to the track. He loved to stop and look around. He might stand for 60 seconds or a minute and a half and just look around. When he was good and ready, he’d start walking again. That’s what he enjoyed, and you just kind of went along with it.”
With his unexceptional conformation and long career – he earned more than $2.3 million at the age of 9 when most of his contemporaries had long forgotten what the call to the post sounded like – John Henry was dubbed a “working class hero.”
While his dam, Once Double, produced a couple of other Thoroughbred stakes horses, and yearlings that sold for up to $600,000, she retained ties to her working class origins, too. She was bred to prominent Quarter Horse sire Streakin Six, resulting in the race-winning mare and winning producer Imafleet. That was arguably the most prominent Thoroughbred / Quarter Horse cross since King Ranch’s Triple Crown winner Assault sired a few Quarter Horse offspring forty years earlier.
Sam Rubin’s stepson, Tom Levinson, said, “We are sure that if Sam Rubin were here today, he and my mother would agree that their wish would be for John Henry to be remembered as the mighty, cantankerous champion we all loved.”