By TONY TAGLAVORE, Journal Sports
The path to success is not always as free and easy as a six-furlong gallop around the track.
Just ask 81-year-old trainer H.B. “Henry” Johnson, Junior.
A broken femur, 17 days in the hospital, and a year on crutches, led to Johnson’s successful — and still going — training career.
And get this: Johnson’s injury happened not at the track, but — of all places — his home.
“I had a horse that had gotten out,” Johnson remembers of the Arkansas morning almost 50 years ago. “It was a young horse. I caught him that morning. I was thinking about starting to ride him in a few days. So I thought, ‘I might as well start this morning.’ I put the saddle on him, I got warmed up, and I got on him. He just flipped (over backwards) on me.”
At the time, Johnson was making a living competing in rodeos, riding bareback horses and bulls. But that morning, his life changed.
“I had a wife and three kids, so I decided I should do something else.”
“Something else” began as a horse owner. But Johnson soon decided he was a better fit to be a trainer.
“I liked getting up early in the morning and going to the barn,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s track record shows his decision was a good one. According to Equibase.com, since 1978, horses trained by Johnson have won more than $14 million dollars. Not bad for someone who never had dreams of training a Kentucky Derby or Triple Crown winner.
“I just wanted to train one that wins. I didn’t have any visions of grandeur.”
Johnson’s approach to training is fairly simple — but an approach not used by all trainers.
“The best thing you can do is leave (horses) alone,” Johnson said. “Get them out in the morning. Do what you’re supposed to do with them. Feed them. Get away from them. Come back in the afternoon and feed them again. Don’t aggravate them. Don’t hang around and punch and push on them.”
Through the years, Johnson has learned with horses, you have to be patient.
“You don’t try to force them to do anything. You’re not going to force a horse to do what he doesn’t want to do. They weigh a thousand pounds, and a person weighs a lot less.”
Right now, Johnson is training two horses for owners Paul and Marianne Phillips. They bought both horses for $11,000. The two-year-old and six-year-old together have won more than $130,000.
“To me, he’s quite a horseman,” Paul Phillips said of Johnson. “He understands each horse is different, and that each one needs to be treated and trained differently. He won’t make the horse fit into a different breaking or training pattern. He will let the horse tell him what he needs and wants.”
In addition to how Johnson handles horses, Phillips appreciates how Johnson handles humans.
“There are some people (in the horse industry) who are less than honest,” Phillips said. “I often times refer to them as much like a shady used car salesman. Henry is not that way. He’s really honest with you. He tells you exactly what’s going on.”
For horse bettors, there is no such thing as a sure thing. That’s the same for trainers.
“You think they’re going to do good, and they just don’t. They don’t care to run.”
One horse which pleasantly surprised Johnson was Political Whit. He became a local favorite, winning almost $350,000.
“We just thought we were getting a decent horse, and he turned out to be a real nice horse.”
Johnson knows he’s running down the stretch of his training career. But he believes, when he hits the finish line, he will still have a hand in horse racing.
“I will probably always have a horse or two, but I may let somebody else train them.”
“Somebody else” will have a hard act to follow.
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