John Henry's PPs (via GPK)
 

A look at John Henry'a PPs denotes a stark departure from today's racing.Look at the number of runners listed. There are many graded stakes with 9 or more runners. even in California. Compare to the sparse fields in major races today.

Threadworthy.











THUD

As they say on FARK... "This thread is useless without pictures"... (Or the actual PP's..)

Will scan John Henry PP's when I get a moment later this a.m.

Steve...not sure if this helps, but here is a link.

http://www.drf.com/misc/edit/johnhenry_lifetimepps.pdf

Thx Kev! (It does help... Beats the alternative anyway.. Which was no PP's)

So he wins a MSW event in his debut, wins an allowance race, and then runs in another MSW in his 6th start?

Also, where is/was JND?

Jnd
 

Jnd was Jefferson Downs in La.

Jefferson Downs was the premier racetrack of the south.

There were 2 Jefferson Downs.. The old Jefferson Downs was first Magnolia Park (1955) and a harness joint. Was renamed Jefferson and became a thoroughbred venue in 1959 and was leveled by Hurricane Betsy in the mid-60's. A new Jefferson Park was opened in Kenner in the 70's and survived until the early 90's.

His 6th career start was just a special weight race ... it wasn't restricted to maidens.

If anyone wants to know anything about any of John's races, let me know. I have the PPs which I cut out of the DRF in '84 prior to his Turf Classic victory over Win and All Along.

good catch.

To be fair there were also 9 stakes which had fields of 6 or less...

Six or less today is closer to the norm.

How about JH getting trounced in a $20,000 claimer in '78, then two years later, winning six straight graded stakes.

39 wins out of 83 races....truly yeoman stats!

Alright you math geeks in today's money how much money did ole boy win alltogether? 6 something million is still alot of money for a race horse.

I believe the guy who rode him on his first graded stakes win, Jose Amy, made a comeback last year. Not quite Earlie Fires old, but old nonetheless.

Yeah that name looked familiar. Amy has since gone on to other things.

According to inflation calculator the inflation rate is 92.23% from Oct. 1984 to January 2007. It kept logging out when I tried to put in October 2007.

So John Henry's lifetime earnings in 1984 were $6,597,947.00,

todays earnings would be $12,683,233.00
I rounded it off.

That's remarkable.

Edit: Corrected this, sorry the site and I were not working properly at the moment. I was off 2 decimals as will be noted in further posts.

Pretty sure you need to find a new calculator.

11 starts at 2 - sure didn't break him down.

The beginning of his career looks like a minor track stakes horse who couldn't compete in stakes at a major track (Fair Grounds) and so dropped into what was upper level claimers at the time. Quite logical.

But the odd thing is that after being unable to do better than run a distant third in a FG sprint at Cl25, coming from behind, he goes up to Aqu two months later and wins a nearly identical race running up close to or on the pace. Anybody know when in here he was gelded? If it wasn't before he started racing, this gap with the form shift looks likely. Once they put him on turf in June of his 3yo year, he was on his way to stardom. Notice his first graded win was at AP?

11 starts at 2 - sure didn't break him down.

The beginning of his career looks like a minor track stakes horse who couldn't compete in stakes at a major track (Fair Grounds) and so dropped into what was upper level claimers at the time. Quite logical.

But the odd thing is that after being unable to do better than run a distant third in a FG sprint at Cl25, coming from behind, he goes up to Aqu two months later and wins a nearly identical race running up close to or on the pace. Anybody know when in here he was gelded? If it wasn't before he started racing, this gap with the form shift looks likely. Once they put him on turf in June of his 3yo year, he was on his way to stardom. Notice his first graded win was at AP?

Checking out the JC Gold Cup of 81, see who was third? That was Relaxing, dam of Easy Goer and G1 winners Cadillacing and Easy Now.

Hey, now! Did you know that Gato del Sol actually beat John twice? 4Mar84 Santa Anita H-G1, Interco wins, Gato del Sol 3rd, John fifth by 8l; 1Apr84, San Luis Rey-G1 12fT, wfa, Interco is a neck ahead of Gato, who is 1.5l ahead of John. Shows you why it is the body of work is the most important thing in judging a horse's career, not a single race.

LOL

Here you try it then, tell me what you get.

Feel free to find another calculator and link it here and I would be happy to use your new calculator.

Here's the links......

http://www.cs.state.ny.us/businesssu...on-Calculator/

EDIT: Sorry this is the one above I meant to site. Which would put it 13,062, 538.00 So I stand corrected, although other sites give differing info. I was cutting and pasting and clicked the wrong site. Trying to multi-task, sometimesI do have real work to do.... clicked the wrong one. Sound better now.


http://www.inflationdata.com/Inflati...Calculator.asp

EDIT: This is the one that puts it at 92.23%

Still remarkable either way.

Most sites report the dollar has lost 1/2 it's value since 1984, you do the math. So the 13,000,000.00 would be about right.

You're off a couple decimal points. It should be $12.6 million rather than $1.26 billion.

Inflation rate = 92.23%

John Henry's earnings as of 1984 = $6,597,947.00

Estimated current earnings based on inflation = $6,597,947 * (1+.9223) = $12,683,233.52

I know I edited my last post, take a look. And yes I used the sites calculator, too easy. I did not check my math before posting, I sincerely apologize, I'm glad we have it corrected.

Sorry concentrating on real work...but thought the question was fun.
Still remarkable.

Does anybody know the race where he supposedly lost and still went to the winners circle and refused to budge? I have heard the story before but not which race or track

legend has it as the '83 Arlington Million

Two things are somewhat sad about looking at John Henry's PP's and comparing it to today.

1st: Because this game is a cespool of drugs, no one will ever believe achievements, similar to what John Henry did, can be legitimate. For example, Lava Man.

2nd: When will a champion runner race into his 9th year again? Half the time, they don't run beyond the age of 4.

John Henry was clearly a "once in a lifetime" race horse.

The Tin Man.

--Dunbar