Todd Pletcher, winner of a record by Seven Eclipse Awards as a leading trainer in North America, learned valuable lessons as a top assistant of Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas. Chad Brown points to the mentoring of the deceased Hall of Famer Bobby Frankel and an association with Frankel that he will always cherish in discussing his climb.
The late Phillip “PG” Johnson, on the other hand, was autodidact. He learned by trial and error and countless hours of hands-on toil, which contributed to the shine of his performance.
His six-decade Hall of Fame training career finally culminated in one of the great disruptions in the history of the world championships of the Breeders ‘Cup, when 43.50-1 HomeBred Volponi shocked the world with a 6 ½ length romp in the 2002 Breeders’ Cup Classic.
The road to Lieve Longshot Volponi was anything but easy. It started with Song Master, a purchase of $ 75 for Johnson in 1942 who represented the first thoroughbred he bought. That transaction literally included a fire sale. Song Master had had smoke exit during a fire.
The scenario that unfolded after Song Master entered the barn would say anything about Johnson’s career. He worked with Song Master and worked together a bit until the resident of Chicago led the horse two years later in the Circle of the winner in the Hawthorne Race Course for the first of his 2,315 victories. Johnson’s lifelong income would amount to a total of $ 47,519,937.
Johnson was respected in the entire racing community for his dedication to his wife, Mary Kay, and then to their daughters, Kathy and Karen, who enjoyed spending time and helping them with the barn.
“He was very passionate about what he did, but he was also very passionate about the family,” said Karen, now an experienced peat writer. “He always made time for family away from the races when he could.”
Johnson enjoyed watching Kathy’s handicraft with show horses. When Karen walked in high school, he attended as many meetings as possible.
At the barn he was astute in assessing what every horse offered and what could be done to improve that horse.
“His ability to judge a horse in the flesh, he really knew what he was looking at and he was a student since he was a teenager,” said Karen.
The two years Song Master had to change a winner in the willingness of Johnson to give promising runners the time they needed.
“He was very patient with horses. He never wanted to hurry the 2-year-olds. He always wanted to take a wait-and-see approach,” said Karen. “If you saw him go with a 2-year-old, you knew he thought they were very quickly and healthy and that they could keep it up.”
Johnson trained in Arlington Park near Chicago as well as Detroit, Florida and Maryland before setting himself in New York and put his mark on that ultra -competitive circuit. He won four training titles in Belmont Park, three at Aqueduct and one in Saratoga.
In a remarkable piece Given the prestige of the meeting, he won at least one race in Saratoga from 1962 to 2003. He registered big victories with the Geraldine store (Diana Handicap, 1983), Kiri’s Clown (Sword Dancer Invital, 1995) and Maplejinsky, 1988).
He became a student of bloodlines and wanted to breed a first -class horse. Volponi, a son of cryptoclearance that was bred in Kentucky in the name of the Amherst stable of the family, became that horse.
Nobody debated that Volponi was talented, but it seemed that he would be hopelessly surpassed in the classic. Many wondered why he was introduced. Johnson, then in his sixth decade in the company, saw signs that others missed.
“He really felt, very strong that the horse was going to run a good race,” said Karen. “Could you predict that he would win and win as easy as that? That is difficult. But he knew that horse was on a good race.”
Volponi ran the race of your life in Arlington Park and brought everything completely circle for PG and Mary Kay, the love of his life.
“Having that breeders’ cup was all because two years later my parents died within 11 weeks in succession,” said Karen. “To just think back at the time and to see their joy, they held hand in their hands while walking to the circle of the winner, it was very special.”
A moment when a lifetime was in the making.
Nice facts
- Volponi is named after writer Paul Volponi.
- Volponi means “Sly Old Fox” in Italian.
- Johnson was co-ownership of Volponi with Edward Baier, an old friend.
- Volponi finished second or third in six consecutive Graded Stakes races after the classic, including the Suburban and Whitney Handicaps, both degree 1 games.
- Veteran Turf -writer Steve Haskin van Bloodhorse Selected Volponi as his best gamble of the 2002 Breeders’ Cup.
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