Page 162 - Speedhorse, December 2018

The paddocks of Zevi and “Pali” face southwest. On the other side of the Quonset,
a big paddock on level ground extends from a door in the Quonset that is almost always open. The paddock and half of the Quonset belong
to Hairball, who comes and goes at will. Thirty years young, his favorite pastime is standing in his paddock looking up toward the hill where cars sparkle in their progress along the highway.
The paddock next to Johnny’s is reserved
for a special mare; one of his daughters, Linda’s Dial. Foaled in 1972 out of Mercedes Rocket
by Rocket Bar, Linda’s Dial made 38 starts 1974 through 1975. AAAT (si 101), she came in first fourteen times, placed eleven times, showed twice and earned a total of $29,235.52. She pulled up lame in her last race with a fracture in her right fore ankle. Surgery at the University
of Missouri included bone grafts. Today, her ankle is bigger than a prize grapefruit but gives her no trouble or pain. Soft-eyed, longhipped and beautiful, she will produce her first foal in 1978. The mare and her dad spend long sessions visiting over the fence.
Time consumes everything, and it has not spared the brown horse from New Mexico.
The back that carried only “the bravest and
the best” is going. Ping pong balls could ride
in the cavities of his sunken temples and never fall. But he is still the Johnny Dial. A few of us spent the day with him last December, when the temperature was dropping fast and snow was on the way. During those hours, we saw everything people have talked about for more than 28 years. We believe we found the secret of The Dial Getaway. He was standing as he was reported to have stood in the gate – looking sleepy, a hind leg cocked. The next second, he was in a slow, gentlemanly lope. What happened is that he made his starting jump with his weight on three legs. The hind foot that had been cocked came down a fraction of a second after his forefeet landed. The forefeet went up immediately. For
a moment or two, his only contact with the ground was that hind foot. Then, the forefeet came down again, and off he went. The smooth “double shuffle” he performed made his starting jump seem extra long. Maybe that was his secret
all the time. Johnny Dial still yawns, drawing it out, enjoying every minute of it. The fans of this grand old campaigner will be happy to know that Johnny’s half of the Quonset hut is equipped with an abundant number of heat lamps. They flick on softly, like spotlights, when the temperature reaches 45 degrees. When the discovery of the heat lamps was made, someone accused Earl of breaking his rule of “no fancy trappings.” He just said, “I wish it was as easy to stop time’s clock on Johnny Dial as it is to keep him warm.”
The entire basement of the Shapiro home in Festus has been converted into a giant recreation room with many comfortable conversation corners. The room is dominated by a four-by-six foot portrait of Little Hairball. Spreading away from both sides of the portrait
– lining walls, table tops and shelves, are smaller photos and dozens of trophies, mostly earned by the Johnny Dial family. It was here that Earl Shapiro expressed his feelings about
Johnny Dial.
“I grew up the hard way. Money wasn’t
exactly laying around. Even when things got better for me, my bankroll still couldn’t stand building a top broodmare bond. I wanted to breed to Johnny Dial because I had figured
out that he could get quality without a lot of help, and I didn’t have top caliber mares. But looking at the stud fee on him, and at the miles to travel to get to him, well, money was still a problem. So I finally took the step and bought him, and he did what I needed and was hoping for. In fact, he turned me into the eighth leading breeder of winners in the country in 1974.
Now I have his daughters and granddaughters out there. When it comes to bloodlines, I will compare my mares with anyone’s.
“My vision is absolutely a perfect 20/20, hindsight. Given it all to do over, I would move Johnny into the core of Oklahoma and give him the chance to reach his maximum in siring. He was always sort of isolated. Then, I acquired him and brought him here to the end of the world. “He was an excellent producer for me for several years. I had all kinds of opportunities to sell him, but wouldn’t have done it at any price and still wouldn’t. Then he got sick, very sick. I don’t want to go into all of it, it would take too long to tell, but it was bad, real bad. I took him to the University of Missouri and thought along
“I knew what it would take to buy him. Nerve and money. He was already twenty years old, but he was still Johnny Dial and would never go cheap. So, I sat on the plane and thought about the horse and wished I had the guts to get him.”
160 SPEEDHORSE, December 2018
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JANUARY 1978 ISSUE
© Lynn Jank
Johnny Dial at 29 in Festus, Missouri, in 1977. “Temperature dropping. Snow beginning to fall,” stated Speedhorse writer Lynn Jank. “Everyone I talked to wanted to know if he still stood with a hind leg cocked.”