For John Henry, the Finish Line May Be at Hand : An Announcement Is Expected That 11-Year-Old Gelding Is Retiring for Good

An announcement is expected this week--probably today--that John Henry, the 11-year-old gelding who has won more money than any other race horse in history, will be permanently retired.

John Henry, winner of $6,597,947, 30 stakes races and 2 horse-of-the-year titles, developed a swelling in his lower left foreleg after a six-furlong workout at Del Mar a week ago.

With a younger horse, rest would probably have cured the problem. But John Henry isn’t young, and complicating matters is that the injury is in the same place where a swelling prevented him from running in the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes at Hollywood Park in 1984.

Jack Robbins, John Henry’s veterinarian, returned to California from Saratoga, where he was attending a yearling sale, to examine the horse. Results of X-rays of the leg are expected to be available today.

Even without the X-rays, however, the situation seems clear to Ron McAnally, John Henry’s trainer.

“It looks like it’s retirement time again,” McAnally said Monday. McAnally added that he had spoken Monday with Sam Rubin, John Henry’s owner, who had returned to his home in New York from Del Mar Sunday. It is likely that they will combine to make a retirement statement.

McAnally seemed relieved Monday. There has been extraordinary pressure on the trainer since Rubin decided in early May to return the horse to training. John Henry hasn’t raced since Oct. 13, 1984, when he won the Ballantine’s Scotch race at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, and he had been retired in July of last year because of a swelling in his right leg that at first appeared to be a potential cause for a serious breakdown.

John Henry was sent to the Kentucky Horse Park, where a few other noteworthy horses are also in retirement, but in late April this year, Rubin--who missed the thrills the horse had given him--had him examined by a Lexington, Ky., veterinarian. John Henry was said to be in “perfect physical condition” and that assessment resulted in his being sent back to McAnally at Hollywood Park for a comeback campaign.

Many racing fans were unhappy about the ambitious attempt. McAnally said that his mail has been running 50-50.

Even Rubin was running slightly scared. Recently, he received a letter on the stationery of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and his first reaction was that he probably was going to be criticized for bringing John Henry back. It turned out to be only a request for a donation.

John Henry’s first recorded workout was on July 2 at Hollywood Park, and in six subsequent workouts there and at Del Mar, he showed little sign of his patented competitive zeal. He had been less lackadaisical at Del Mar in recent mornings but was still missing his old fire.

Robert Copelan, the Kentucky veterinarian who vouched for John Henry’s soundness in April, still questioned whether the horse would ever be able to compete at his customary top level. Rubin had promised that John Henry wouldn’t be allowed to run in lesser races.

About 50 pounds overweight when he first returned to McAnally in May, John Henry had lost about 20 pounds of that. “The rest he might never lose,” said Louie Cenicola, one of McAnally’s assistant trainers and John Henry’s regular exercise rider. “Old horses are like old people. When older people put on extra weight, it’s awful hard to take it off.”

Last week, even before John Henry’s latest leg problem, both McAnally and Rubin were skeptical that the horse would be able to run at Del Mar before the season ends Sept. 10.

Rubin kept mentioning races--first it was this month’s Budweiser-Arlington Million, which John Henry has won twice, then later the Del Mar Handicap and the Ballantine’s race in New Jersey in September, but it was all wishful thinking more than anything else. Just last week, McAnally had projected John Henry running at the Oak Tree meeting that opens at Santa Anita Oct. 1.

Santa Anita and the rest of racing will have to survive without John Henry, who in the early 1980s was the sport’s biggest draw and one of the game’s few gate attractions. He is being turned out to pasture again, and this time that is where he will stay.