“Mano Dura, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Texas anymore.”
He most certainly is not, Dorothy. Henry S. Witt Jr.’s Manitoba Derby winner is in Manitoba now, and for all intents and cheering purposes he’s our horse now.
Fans will be cheering loudly for Mano Dura when he heads to Century Mile in Alberta for the second leg of the $550,000 Western Canadian Triple Crown, the $200,000 Canadian Derby (G3) on August 26, going a mile and three-eighths. He won’t be leaving the sight of leading trainer Jerry Gourneau, who will haul his “big horse” to Alberta on his own.
Jason Halstead Photo
Mano Dura’s owner Henry S. Witt Jr. (left) and trainer Jerry Gourneau celebrate their horse’s Manitoba Derby victory.
Claimed for $50,000 three starts ago in Texas, Witt thinks his horse will get the distance, and he’s been around horses long enough to know. The owner of Affiliated Auto Glass in Waco, Texas, also knows a few things about working and winning.
Witt grew up in the small Texas town of Axtell, milking cows on his father’s dairy farm beginning at 3:30 in the morning and then going on to other chores like making hay. At the same time, he earned all-state honours in football and basketball. That led to more of the same at Hill College in Texas.
“I had a basketball, a baseball and a rodeo scholarship,” said Witt. The horse connection would stay with him forever, but it would have to wait. Witt started his auto glass business in 1983 and built it from the ground up while also pursuing his passion of auto racing.
“It’s pretty lucrative now,” said Witt. “I have depots in Waco, Temple, Copperas Cove and Gatesville, 14 trucks and 24 or 25 guys. We do 400 windshields a week.” But it wasn’t always like that.
“I was racing cars when I first started the business,” said Witt. “I’d drive out to the track at night 4 1/2 or five hours away. I’d come back, drive over to the glass shop, park the truck, put a little pallet down on the floor in the office, sleep until about 6:30 and get up, get ready to open up.”
Witt started out with a hot-rod Mustang, but the transmission blew. He then bought a Pontiac Le Mans and finished fourth among 30 cars in his first race, and it was on. The next year he got a 1967 Camaro and “won a bunch of races. We did really good,” said Witt.
Things started to take off for Witt in 1987 and he was full on driving in 1988. “But I was still working,” he said. “I was trying to get a sponsor, maybe go to NASCAR, but anyway, I got Rookie of the Year in the National Championship Racing Association.”
Witt went on to win multiple IMCA Modified championships from 1988 to 1997. In 1998 he started driving for the 701 Racing Team and won more feature races in the shortest period of time than anyone in the history of IMCA racing. He won 258 features, eight consecutive regional championships, six consecutive state championships and one national championship. He retired from racing in 2007 after winning his final race.
“I quit racing cars on July 21, on my birthday,” said Witt. “I was in a race and I got a lap down. I came back and I got back on the lead, and they tried to put me in first place, but I just said no. I knew I was a lap down.
“It would have been cheating,” said Witt. “I said put me at the back. They said the track was rough. I said I was going to win it anyway. I was in about twenty-first place or something. With two laps to go I took the lead by two and outran them by about eight or ten. I had half my car left. Half of it was hanging on the wall and half of it was torn off.”
“My crew said, ‘God dang man, we’ve never seen anybody drive like that. You were flying. You had sparks just flying off that wall. You were using it for a cushion.’”
“If you dug in your right rear tire, that rubber touches the wall, and it will dang near tear the whole side off your car,” said Witt. “So you had to hit it just right. I’d slide up in there, get against that wall and just hammer on it. That was the last race of my career. I told him, ‘I think we did all we needed to.’”
Witt was going more than a hundred miles an hour in his races around three-eighths and half-mile dirt bullrings for a pittance compared to what his horses at Lone Star Park were running for. Horses got the better of him.
He met trainer Jerry Gourneau in Nebraska, liked the care Gourneau was giving his horses, and later sent him a few that would turn into hundreds over the years and lead to five consecutive leading owner titles at Assiniboia Downs.
The best horse Witt owned before Mano Dura was 2015 Manitoba Derby runner-up Witt Six, who also finished second in the 2015 Canadian Derby. In 2016 Witt Six won the Manitoba Mile, the R.J. Speers and the Gold Cup at Assiniboia Downs, and in 2017 he won the Star of Texas Stakes at Sam Houston Race Park. Witt Six was a favourite of Witt’s daughter on their farm in Texas, and he would often come and put his head in her arms.
Witt Six went in to have a tiny chip removed from his ankle in 2017 and the prognosis was exceptional, but he thrashed and floundered when the anaesthetic wore off, breaking his hind leg, and had to be euthanized.
“My daughter cried forever,” said Witt, who wasn’t short on tears either. It was a gut-wrenching loss of a horse who had become a loyal friend. Mano Dura is by far the best Derby horse Witt has owned since. His name means “Firm Hand” or “Iron Fist” in Spanish.
And the yellow brick road beckons.
