The Remarkable Endura The first thing you might notice about the gaited endurance horse John Henry is that he doesn’t look at all like an endurance horse.
horses to. I don’t know if it’s just his personality, or he’s just experienced, or he’s just got the hang of all this…I don’t know exactly what it is.”
“He’s built like a good, solid trail horse,” says his current owner Susan Garlinghouse, DVM, “but honestly, he has absolutely no business being as good an endurance horse as he is. He’s more heavily muscled than most. I think, with him, he’s really good at it because he wants to be good at it. He just likes his job.”
John Henry’s endurance career began in 2008 with Bruce. He was looking for another gaited horse to ride in the sport, and Fred Mau, a broker in New Mexico, took Weary out for a test ride on an 8-year-old dark chestnut gelding. “I noticed just how easy John Henry was to ride,”
The second thing you might notice about John, if you spend any time around him, is his rather extraordinary personality. “He’s very much like a person,” says Bruce Weary, of Prescott, Ariz., John’s first endurance rider. “He knows how to solve problems. He knows how to take things apart. He sneaks into Susan’s house.” “He’s almost more like a big dog than he is a horse,” adds Susan. “He doesn’t act like a prey species. He’s totally curious. He totally wants to be wherever you are. It sounds so anthropomorphic to say he’s more like a person than a horse, but he reasons a lot more than we expect 14 • The Sound Advocate • Issue 3, 2020
