Masteroffoxhounds Master of All in John Henry

Masteroffoxhounds  was master of all five rivals in the $200,500 John Henry Turf Championship (G2T) Oct. 1 at Santa Anita Park, dictating to the field at every call of the 1 1/4-mile grass event on the way to his first win in more than a year and a half.

To hear winning owner Gary Hartunian tell it, jockey Umberto Rispoli needed the win as much as his mount did.

Masteroffoxhounds, a 5-year-old son of War Front   racing for Rockingham Ranch, had the benefit of a perfectly timed ride by Rispoli. After breaking sharply from the start on the downhill course, Rispoli sent Masteroffoxhounds out to a comfortable lead. Unchallenged, he clicked through measured fractions and held a sizable lead exiting the final turn.

Dicey Mo Chara  and the favorite, Gold Phoenix , took up the chase and were gaining through the final furlong but had just a little too much to do. Dicey Mo Chara missed by a neck to the winner but edged Gold Phoenix for second by a head. Cash Equity  finished fourth, giving trainer Phil D'Amato a 1-3-4 finish in the first stakes race on a big day in the California sunshine.

Masteroffoxhounds finished in 1:59.79 on a firm course. He paid $6.20 to win.

The virtuoso display of timing was barely enough to get Rispoli out of the doghouse with Rockingham's owner Hartunian, who was none too pleased with the jockey's ride on Quintecents , who finished fifth as the favorite in the day's first race after being stuck in traffic repeatedly.

"I almost killed him after the first ride," Hartunian said. "And then he comes back and made up for it. So I'm thrilled. I was so angry about an hour ago, and now I'm back on my feet again."

Hartunian said the John Henry actually went according to plan.

"I just thought it kind of set up good for us," he remarked. "We had to go to the lead and, hopefully, the fractions were slow enough that we could close hard. And that's exactly what he did—a great job, Rispoli. I'm proud of him." 

Masteroffoxhounds, out of the Galileo  mare Outstanding , last visited the winner's circle 10 races back in February of 2021 after taking the San Marcos Stakes (G2T) at Santa Anita. In the following races, he posted just two seconds and entered the John Henry off a fading fifth-place finish in the Del Mar Handicap Presented by the Japan Racing Association (G2T) going 1 3/8 miles.

Bred in Kentucky by Orpendale/Chelston/Wynatt, the colt now has a 4-3-3 record from 19 starts. He was exported to Ireland at the end of 2017 and made his first six starts there in 2019-20, the first two for Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor, and Derrick Smith and Aidan O'Brien, then four under the silks of Zhang Yuesheng for trainer Jessica Harrington. When he returned to the United States in September of 2020, it was to campaign once for David Bernsen and Rockingham once, and through his last 12 starts solely for Rockingham. He was first trained by Richard Baltas for nine starts, and was switched to D'Amato for his past four.

The John Henry Stakes honors the feisty gelding John Henry, a diminutive and often cantankerous competitor who rose from the claiming ranks in Louisiana to twice be honored as Horse of the Year—the second time at age 9. Along the way, he won 39 times, including two runnings of the Arlington Million (G1T), and earned just shy of $6.6 million—a record at the time of his retirement in 1984. 

Trainer Ron McAnally, a frequent visitor to John Henry's old-age Kentucky home, handed over the trophy after the race and joked about his legendary contender's temperament.

"I claimed the horse before I really knew him," he remarked. "I claimed him for $20,000, and we (eventually won graded stakes). If I'd have known 'John' the way I knew him afterwards, I'd have never claimed him."

Video: John Henry Turf Championship S. (G2T)