Johnson P. G. - The big horse

By Joe McGinniss

The Miracle of Castel di Sangro

The Last Brother

Cruel Doubt

Blind Faith

Fatal Vision

Going to Extremes

Heroes

The Dream Team

The Selling of the President 1968

Joe McGinniss

Simon & Schuster
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Copyright 2004 by Joe McGinniss

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I would like to thank the following people, who helped to make my time at Saratoga in 2003 so educational and enjoyable: Pierre Bellocq, Pierre Bellocq, Jr., Remi Bellocq,Cot and Anne Campbell, Ocala and Debbie Cedano, Sean Clancy, Rodrigo Duran, Tom Gilcoyne, Charlie Hayward, John Hertler, Joe Hirsch, Allen Jerkens, Don Little, Jr., Terry Meyocks, Richard Migliore, Anne Palamountain, Todd Pletcher, Jose Santos, Mrs. Whitney (Lucy Lyle) Tower, and Jean-Luc Samynwho would have, Im sure, if he hadnt broken his leg.

I would also like to thank David Rosenthal and (not for the first time) Michael Korda at Simon & Schuster,whose enthusiasm made this book possible. Id like to thank my lawyer, agent, and friend, Dennis Holahan, for showing he has a heart as well as a mind.

I am, of course, enormously indebted to Philip George Johnson and his family:Mary Kay, Kathy, Karen, Emma, and sons-in-law Don Brockway and Noel Michaels. P. G. Johnson taught me a lot about racing, but more about life, at a time when I thought I was too old to learn.

And I would especially like to thank my children, Christine Marque, Suzanne Boyer, Joe McGinniss, Jr., Matthew McGinniss, and James McGinniss, for their love, confidence, and encouragement during some difficult years.

For Anne

P.G. with Volponi

It was raining and still dark when I got to the barn.

The barn was located behind the Oklahoma training track at Saratoga Race Course.

Saratoga is in upstate New York. The training track had been named in the early years, when people had to walk rather than drive to reach it, and its distance from the main track made it seem as remote as Oklahoma.

I squished through the mud, amid dark silhouettes of horses. It was 6 A.M. on the Monday of the last week of July 2003the first week of Saratogas six-week racing season. It also was the first time in more than thirty years that Id been in the Saratoga stable area.

Can I help you?

Im looking for Mr. Johnson.

What the hell for?

The voice was like sandpaper. The speaker was a short man with rounded shoulders. He was wearing a rain jacket and baseball cap, and standing, stooped, beneath a wooden overhang in front of a stall about halfway down the shed row. I hadnt seen him since 1971, and I hadnt actually met him even then, but I knew this had to be P.G.

I called you last night, I said. You told me I could meet you here this morning.

Why would I have said that? Oh, Christ, you must be the guy Im supposed to be nice to so my daughter doesnt lose her goddamned job.

I could hardly see him in the dark, through the rain.

If you have any questions, he said, Ill try to answer them. If its not inconvenient, I might even tell you the truth. But I hope you dont have too many. Ocalas my assistant, but dont bother him, hes a son of a bitch. And try to stay out of the way. Im a working horse trainer, not a goddamned tourist destination.

He turned, and started to shuffle back toward the end of the barn, to the small, dirt-floored cubicle that served as his office at Saratoga.

I wanted to meet you thirty-two years ago, I called after him.

Youre late.

The first time I ever bet a hundred dollars was on a horse of yours. 1970. It was the day of the Travers. Cote-de-Boeuf. Jean Cruguet rode him. Four to one in the morning line. He finished out of the money.

You shouldnt bet. I quit that foolishness years ago.

Later on, can I see Volponi?

Yeah, but for Christs sake dont try to pet him, unless you want to start typing with your toes.

I was born in New York City in 1942, the year P. G. Johnson bought his first horse. My fathers father, an MIT graduate, had been an architect in Boston. My mothers father, an Irish immigrant, had been a New York City fireman. Given such a disparity in bloodlines, if theyd been Thoroughbred horses, my parents would not have been bred to each other. As it was, the results were problematic.

We lived in an apartment in Forest Hills, Queens. My fatherwho had lost both his parents in the influenza epidemic of 1918, when he was twowas not a physically active man,but he did enjoy listening to sporting events on the radio.

I remember Red Barber describing Cookie Lavagettos two-outs-in-the-ninth pinch-hit double off the Ebbets Field right-field wall that not only gave the Brooklyn Dodgers a stunning 3-2 victory, but deprived Yankees pitcher Bill Bevens of the first no-hitter in World Series history. That was in 1947, when I was four.

I also remember my father and I listening to Clem McCarthys call of the 1948 Kentucky Derby, won by Citation, Eddie Arcaro aboard, with Calumet stablemate Coal-town finishing second.

My fatherwho had attended MIT, but had not graduateddid well enough in his business of preparing blueprints for New York City architects to enable us to move to a new home in Rye, in Westchester County.

There, on black-and-white TV, I not only saw Bobby Thompsons home run in 1951, but I watched Dark Star beat Native Dancer in the 1953 Kentucky Derby. I also remember seeing Nashua beat Swaps in the 1955 match race at Chicagos Washington Park (the biggest, it was said, since Seabiscuit vs. War Admiral), and being aghast when Willie Shoemaker misjudged the finish line aboard Gallant Man and lost the 1957 Kentucky Derby. Tom Fool, Bold Ruler, Round Table, Sword Dancer: These were heroes of my childhood sporting universe on a par with Joe DiMaggio,Ted Williams,and Jackie Robinson.

Eventually,my father took me to baseball games at Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds, and to Fordham University football games, but never to the races. My mother explained that no matter how splendid the Kentucky Derby might have seemed on television, the racetrack was a sordid place, populated by men even more disreputable than those who frequented taverns, or, to use her term, gin mills. I was to follow my fathers example and give both places a wide berth when I grew older. In response, I developed an extravagant fantasy life, in which I lived in a gin mill next to a racetrack, dividing my time equally between them.