Horses of the (Same) Year : But Affirmed and John Henry--Now 20 Years Old--Took Different Paths to Glory

Even veteran horsemen are surprised when told that Affirmed and John Henry both were foaled in 1975, only 15 days apart. Even Ron McAnally, who trained John Henry when he was winning seven Eclipse Awards between 1980 and 1985, had to be reminded.

“It does come back to me now,” McAnally said. “After John Henry was retired, I remember talking to Laz Barrera (Affirmed’s late trainer), who was a good friend. We talked about what races these horses might have put on if they had gone against each other.”

Feb. 21 was the 20th anniversary of Affirmed’s birth. Twenty years ago Thursday, John Henry was foaled.

There are two remarkable things about these famous old-timers: They’re still alive and healthy, and even though they’re from the same generation, they never raced each other.

Affirmed, the last horse to sweep the Triple Crown when he won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes in 1978, was voted horse of the year in 1978 and ’79. The only older winners of the Derby still alive are Bold Forbes, who is 22, and Seattle Slew, another Triple Crown champion, who is 21.

John Henry, the horse of the year in 1981 and 1984, has also aged gracefully, perhaps inspired by his stablemate at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Ky. Just across the shed row from John Henry is a stall filled with the massive Forego, a 25-year-old gelding who was horse of the year in 1974, ’75 and ’76.

Affirmed, after earlier stud service at the financially strapped Spendthrift and Calumet Farms, is starting his fourth consecutive breeding season at Jonabell Farm in Lexington, where he recently was joined by Holy Bull, the 1994 horse of the year. Affirmed has lost little if any enthusiasm as a stallion: His most recently registered crop numbered 38 foals, not much below his peak outputs in the 1980s. Jimmy Bell, who manages Jonabell, said that Affirmed will be bred to a full book of about 55 mares this season.

Because of his stallion potential, Affirmed’s career lasted only three years, starting in 1977. John Henry, an undersized, overbearing horse even after he was gelded, was moving from owner to owner in those days. He was bought at auction for $1,100 as a yearling, was sold for $2,200 as a 2-year-old, and was later rejected in a $7,500 deal when a veterinarian didn’t care for the turn of his knees.

Sam Rubin, a Manhattan bicycle importer, was portrayed as a bumpkin when he came along with $25,000 to buy John Henry in the spring of 1978. Rubin, of course, had the ultimate horselaugh. Of the $6.5 million that John Henry had earned when he retired in 1984, all but $50,778 was won while he ran in Rubin’s colors.

Rubin took John Henry to New York, after an erratic series of races in Louisiana for his earlier owners, and there the son of Ole Bob Bowers and Once Double inadvertently became a warm-up act for Affirmed.

On June 1, 1978, in John Henry’s 19th start, trainer Bobby Donato put him on grass for the first time and he won by 12 lengths in a $35,000 claiming race at Belmont Park. Nine days later, in the Belmont Stakes, Affirmed and Alydar dogged each other from the backstretch to the wire, and Affirmed and Steve Cauthen were a head in front at the finish, completing their Triple Crown sweep.

That $35,000 claimer was the last time John Henry was offered for sale. And grass now seemed like the most viable surface. Affirmed did all of his running on dirt. Both were at Saratoga in the summer of 1978 and for some reason, Donato returned John Henry to dirt on Aug. 8. He was trounced by a good allowance field that included Darby Creek Road, who had run fourth in the Kentucky Derby and third, 13 lengths behind Affirmed and Alydar, in the Belmont.

Half an hour after John Henry’s fifth-place finish, Affirmed won the Jim Dandy Stakes. Ten days later, John Henry ran no better on the grass at Saratoga, finishing fourth. And the next day, ridden by Laffit Pincay because Cauthen had a shoulder injury, Affirmed finished first in the Travers, but in a bitter decision, the stewards took his number down and gave the victory to Alydar, who had been beaten by 1 3/4 lengths.

Affirmed was bred by Louis Wolfson and his wife, Patrice, through a mating of Exclusive Native and Won’t Tell You. Starting in late 1978, Affirmed and John Henry crisscrossed the country, always going in opposite directions. John Henry had made his West Coast debut in races at Santa Anita in the fall of ‘78, while Affirmed was in New York. And when Affirmed moved West for the winter of ‘79, John Henry went back East, getting a belated start on his 4-year-old campaign.

At Santa Anita, there were two sudden blips on Affirmed’s record, a third-place finish in the Malibu and a second in the San Fernando. Besides those disappointments, Cauthen was shackled with a losing streak that reached 110 races, and Barrera permanently replaced him with Pincay on Affirmed. The colt then won everything in sight in California and finished his career with seven in a row.

“Even when Affirmed was winning, it wasn’t by much with Cauthen riding,” Patrice Wolfson said. “When Laffit rode him, Affirmed would win by big margins. Laffit would hit him, but Affirmed got to respect Laffit’s whip.”

After winning the Strub Stakes by 10 lengths and the Santa Anita Handicap by 4 1/2, Affirmed moved on to Hollywood Park, carrying 130 pounds while winning the Californian and packing 132 pounds for his victory in the Hollywood Gold Cup.

“The Gold Cup was a tough, tough race,” Patrice Wolfson said. “He had all that weight and he was going to be forced to take the lead. Laffit couldn’t believe Laz when he told him that that was going to be the plan. That might have been his best race.”

Sirlad, with 120 pounds, and Text, at 119, made Affirmed work, and he ran 1 1/4 miles in 1:58 2/5, only a fifth of a second shy of the American record, winning by three-quarters of a length.

John Henry had a new trainer, Rubin having switched from Donato to Lefty Nickerson, and while the victories weren’t coming in bunches, the horse’s solid grass form continued to hold.

On Oct. 6, 1979, Affirmed went out with a bang, beating Spectacular Bid, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, by three-quarters of a length in the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont. Affirmed was retired with a record $2.3 million in earnings, but John Henry, who had been sent to Ron McAnally in California, was just getting warmed up. In fact, he had 27 victories, two horse-of-the-year titles and $6.3 million in purses ahead of him.

“I just left him,” Rosemary Honerkamp, John Henry’s groom, said on the phone the other day from the Kentucky Horse Park. “He’s over there rolling around in the mud. He looks like a pig. He’s holding his weight well, and doesn’t act like a 20-year-old. He eats anything. Besides apples, he’ll take carrots, hamburgers, even pizza.”

Rubin, 81, is retired, living with his wife, Dorothy, in West Palm Beach, Fla., and playing golf almost daily. He was at Gulfstream Park the day Holy Bull broke down, ending his racing career.

The Rubins will be flying to California on Thursday, John Henry’s 20th birthday, to participate in ceremonies honoring their horse as the only two-time winner of the Santa Anita Handicap.

“What John gave us all those years was beyond our dreams,” Rubin said.

At Gulfstream, Rubin was wearing John Henry’s lapel pin from the Racing Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Because his career lasted so much longer, John Henry wasn’t enshrined until 1990, 10 years after Affirmed.

“That’s John Henry’s pin,” one of Sam Rubin’s friends said. “What are you doing wearing it?”

“Every time John puts it on, it hurts him,” Rubin said.

McAnally visits John Henry in Kentucky at least once a year, usually twice.

“McAnally’s the only one John knows,” Rubin said. “He waves those carrots, John recognizes the voice, and then he comes over to the front of the stall. As for us, we’ve taken away John’s credit cards. We go there and he doesn’t know us from a hole in the ground.”