Rubin Shaken by John Henry News

The messenger of bad tidings was Sam Rubin’s daughter, Phyllis. When Sam and Dorothy Rubin returned to New York Thursday night from a vacation in France, Phyllis was there to tell them that their John Henry wasn’t running Sunday, and might never run again.

“I started shaking when I first heard the news,” Rubin said Friday from his bicycle-importing company in New York. “But that’s life, I guess. We all knew that the horse couldn’t go on forever.”

Trainer Ron McAnally had made the decision Thursday morning to scratch John Henry from Sunday’s Vernon Underwood Handicap at Hollywood Park. A tendon problem in the 10-year-old gelding’s right foreleg is also likely to be the end of his career, which has included two horse of the year titles and record earnings of almost $6.6 million.

The Rubins had planned to fly to Los Angeles for Sunday’s race. But now the race has been canceled--not just for John Henry, but for the entire field. Trainers of only four other horses were interested, not enough to hold the race.

So the Rubins will arrive in California Monday and visit with John Henry at Del Mar, where he will be stabled and treated. McAnally said that a decision on the horse’s career would be made in about two weeks.

“If there’s any doubt about his condition, he’ll be retired immediately,” said Sam Rubin, who bought John Henry as a 3-year-old for $25,000. “If it has to end, I’m happy that it didn’t happen on the track. I think I would have dropped dead if something had happened to him while he was running in a race.”

At his home Thursday night, Rubin looked at a videotape of John Henry’s workout at Hollywood Park on July 4. The horse covered a mile on the grass in 1:35 2/5, an effort so facile that his jockey, Chris McCarron, thought it might have been a couple of seconds slower.

“He was running so easy on that tape that he looked like a 3- or a 4-year-old,” Rubin said. “It’s hard to believe that he’s out now after what he did that day.”

Several days ago, before the extent of John Henry’s injury was known, McAnally sent Arlington Park a check for $2,500, the final payment needed to make the horse eligible for the Arlington Million on Aug. 25. Deadline for the payment was Thursday. John Henry won the first running of the Million, in 1981, won it again last year and finished second, beaten by a neck by Tolomeo, in 1983. John Henry missed the ’82 Million because he was injured.

The Underwood was to have been John Henry’s prep for the Million.

McAnally also canceled a scheduled appearance by John Henry in the paddock for the fans Sunday. The last time John Henry went to the paddock, before his public workout on July 4, he seemed to think he was being prepared for a race and got hyperactive. McAnally doesn’t want to risk aggravating the horse’s tendon problem on Sunday.

Although Hollywood Park offered to stable John Henry at the track for the rest of his life when he’s retired, Rubin said the horse would go to Joe Taub’s Sterlingbrook Farm in Pittstown, N.J.

“Joe’s an old friend, and I told him a long time ago that John would wind up at his place,” Rubin said. “They have a full-time veterinarian there, and it will be a fine place for the horse to spend the rest of his years.”

Rubin’s only other horse, a 3-year-old colt named Proper Officer, is now at Sterlingbrook, recovering from sore feet.

“I’ve got a share in that colt’s sire, Policeman (winner of the 1980 French Derby and now at stud in New York), but I’ve got no mare to breed to him,” the 71-year-old Rubin said. “When John Henry goes (retires), I’ll take a year off before I get back into the horse business. I’d just like a year to think about the seven great years he’s given us. Let’s face it: After John Henry, anything else would be anti-climactic.”

Horse Racing Notes Some members of the California Horse Racing Board received Mailgrams from Hollywood Park Friday, saying that a proposed $100,000 quarter-horse race won’t be held at the track, which closes Monday. Thoroughbred horsemen at Hollywood opposed the running of the race, saying it was a violation of their contract with the track, and on Wednesday, Ben Felton, chairman of the racing board, had stayed the board’s approval of the race pending a review. . . . The 1986 Santa Anita Handicap, scheduled for March 2, will almost double in purse value to $1 million, making it the richest race in track history. The winner of the Big ‘Cap will receive $550,000. . . . The only other tracks in the United States that have offered $1 million races have been Arlington Park, Hollywood Park and Garden State Park, besides the $1 million to $3 million races on Breeders’ Cup day each year. The first Big ‘Cap, in 1935, was worth $127,000. . . . Trainer Wayne Lukas, who has twice won the Hollywood Juvenile Championship with fillies--Terlingua in ’78 and Althea in ‘83--will try for a third female victory today with Arewehavingfunyet. Among the 2-year-olds she’ll have to beat is Hilco Scamper, an undefeated gelding. . . . Trainer Charlie Whittingham may start Dahar and Val Danseur in addition to the favored Greinton in Monday’s $200,000 Sunset Handicap. Whittingham doesn’t have an ownership interest in the other two horses, but has 25% of Greinton.