John Henry Returns to Track After Year

In his first workout in almost a year, John Henry ran a quarter of a mile in 24 seconds Wednesday morning at Hollywood Park. Not real fast, but not real slow, either. Just a satisfactory workout.

The 11-year-old gelding, racing’s career record earner with $6.5 million, is attempting a comeback after having not raced since October 1984.

After John Henry worked out last July 11, he developed a swelling in his right foreleg and was retired 10 days later.

He spent about a year in retirement at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Ky., when owner Sam Rubin decided to bring the two-time Horse of the Year back. John Henry returned to trainer Ron McAnally’s barn on May 10 and has been in light training since then.

By McAnally’s stopwatch Wednesday, John Henry finished three furlongs in :36 3/5 with his regular exercise rider, Looie Cenicola, in the saddle. McAnally, satisfied with the workout, said that John Henry would jog today, gallop for three days after that and probably work three furlongs on Monday.

McAnally declined to speculate on the date of John Henry’s first race. “With a horse this age, you just take it a day at a time,” McAnally said.

Rubin, who had hoped that John Henry might run in the Aug. 31 Budweiser Arlington Million, a race he has won twice, announced earlier that all of the horse’s future earnings would be given to charity.

For John Henry to be eligible for this year’s Million, a supplementary fee of $75,000 would have to be paid by July 24.

“Sam and I will have to take a look at the situation when that time comes,” McAnally said.

Asked if it would be possible for John Henry to run in the Million without a prep race, McAnally said: “In the old days we could have done it--we did do it. But whether the horse would be up to that now, I just don’t know.”