Photo:

Maryland Jockey Club & Eclipse Sportswire – composite

Influential owner and breeder Larry Johnson, who was a
high-ranking officer of horsemen’s groups in Maryland and Virginia, died Tuesday
at age 78.

The owner of Legacy Farm in Bluemount, Va., Johnson’s foray
into breeding began in 1978 when he bought the mare Ran’s Chick for the bargain-basement
price of $2,800.

Although Ran’s Chick never made it to the racetrack, she
became Johnson’s foundation broodmare with more than 40 stakes horses emerging
from that family.

Ran’s Chick is the fourth dam of Future Is Now and Call
Another Play, homebred stakes winners for Johnson in 2024. Future Is Now
captured the Grade 2 Franklin Stakes at Keeneland and the Intercontinental
Stakes (G2) at Saratoga. Call Another Play took the Weber City Miss and Geisha
Stakes at Laurel Park. Call Another Play also finished third in last year’s
Black-Eyed Susan (G2) at Pimlico. Michael Trombetta trained Future Is Now and
Call Another Play.

Ran’s Chick is also the fourth dam of Mindframe, who Johnson
sold to Repole Stable and St. Elias Stables for $600,000 as a yearling.
Mindframe raced four times last year and finished second in the Belmont Stakes
at Saratoga and the Haskell (G1) at Monmouth Park.

Johnson was a patient horseman. He bought Grade 2 winner
True Valour for $220,000 at a 2020 Fasig-Tipton horses-of-racing-age auction.
True Valour raced six times for trainer Graham Motion in 2020 and 2021 before
going to the sidelines for over a year due to ankle surgery.  

True Valour returned as good as new as an 8-year-old,
winning Laurel’s King T. Leatherbury Stakes and then finishing a close third in
the Jaipur (G1) at Belmont Park. True Valour finished his career with a
runner-up effort in Saratoga’s Troy (G3).

“I was actually surprised that Larry wanted to put him back
in training,” Motion said after the King T. Leatherbury victory. “But Larry is
the eternal optimist and loves racing.”

Johnson was a Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association vice
president. He also served with the Virginia Thoroughbred Association and was a
board member of the Virginia Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association.

Between 2017 and 2022, Johnson was Maryland’s leading earner
of Maryland fund awards. His horses earned more than $20 million.