Page 51 - Canada Spring 2019

down and going to sleep any minute. He even yawed.”
That day in Carlsbad was the first opportunity racing fans had to watch The Getaway. Most people missed it. They were looking
over “hairball’s” head at other contenders, one in particular –
the good filly, Hy Dale, mistress
of 400 yards. Came the break. Johnny Dial leapt and wasn’t
there anymore. Hy Dale, then and always, gave nothing but more
than her best. Hairball still had
her by a head at the wire. The sun had gone up in New Mexico that morning over a colt that was at best a comical figure at first glance. It went down over the marked horse, Johnny Dial.
Johnny Dial made his first official start seven months later in Albuquerque, in the running of the New Mexico Futurity. In the tradition of his mom, he walked into the gate like a plow horse. Elmer Hepler still swears today that, “A kid could lead him to the gate. But, it took the bravest and the best to hang onto him when he went out of it.” And Johnny broke in Albuquerque, came down with a rapid force that shook the vision of those who watched. He won his race by a length that day.
Since King James I turned horse racing into a sport in England in the early 1600s, men have sighed and women have cried for their favorite race horses, whether they own the horses by signatures on paper or by the feeling that rides
in their middles like a hard apple core, a feeling that says Win or Lose, He Is Better Than The Rest. If the athlete on the run out there happens to have unshakable habits,
Weanling Johnny Dial (right) and a foal by Depth Charge TB and out of Shue Fly.
presents unvarying action time after time, then his behavior turns him into a personality, and an idol is born. Johnny Dial was one. 1950 through 1953 he slouched into the gate, yawned around, cocked a hind leg and, on the call of the break, Johnny was gone.
“Gone like a streak,” Roy Boland contends. “Johnny Dial. I loved him then and still do. His daughters made me a successful breeder. I still have Denise Dial,
SPEEDHORSE CANADA, Spring 2019 51
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JANUARY 1978 ISSUE
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© Elmer Helper
© Elmer Helper
Black Annie in 1948 with her one-day-old colt by Depth Charge TB that was named
Johnny Dial.
© Elmer Helper
Johnny Dial at two years of age with Elmer Hepler.