Henry S. Witt, Jr. (right) with trainer Jerry Gourneau and jockey Antonio Whitehall after winning the Manitoba Derby with longshot Mano Dura in 2023. (Jason Halstead / Assiniboia Photo)
By G.S. Thompson
Henry S. Witt, Jr. has won the leading owner title at Assiniboia Downs seven years in a row, and the former champion race car driver will be coming after it again in 2026 with an even bigger and better stable.
“We’ll be there early this year,” said Witt, who won the 2025 owner title at the Downs with a record of 33-26-20 from 132 starts for purse earnings of $350,137. And that was after getting off to a late start. Five-time leading trainer Jerry Gourneau is expected to be back at the helm again in 2026 for Witt, who could have as many as 50 horses in training at the Downs this year.
The 66-year-old Texan operates out of his 1,200-acre ranch east of Waco, where he has two barns capable of housing 40 horses and a half-mile training track. Witt figures he’s got around 60 horses right now, and he’s always looking for more.
“I should gather up about 25 more pretty quick,” he said. “We’re gonna go up there and fire with them. Everything should be good up there this year.”
And Witt has some live ones.
The owner of Affiliated Auto Glass in Waco is particularly excited about a filly named Witt’s Lil Ringer, who is two-for-two in Texas and looks like she could be something special. The daughter of Bell Ringer won her debut at Sam Houston by daylight on January 18th, and came back six days later to win the $75,000 Bara Lass Stakes in the mud, looking every bit as impressive as she did in her maiden win.
“She left them at the latches, and I’m telling you, it looked like her gate was the only one that opened,” said Witt. “She left there running and she won that sucker. She won it as easy as she won the maiden race because she got a little better.”
Three-year-old filly Witt’s Lil Ringer wins the $75,000 Bara Lass Stakes on January 24 at Sam Houston Racepark for Henry S. Witt, Jr. (Jack Coady Photography)
Witt, who grew up riding horses bareback on the family dairy farm in Axtell, Texas, wasn’t worried about a little mud in the stakes race.
“I called my trainer saying, ‘Oh, you don’t want to run?'” said Witt. “I said, man, you know, I used to go out in the mud to get dairy cows on 545 acres with horses. I rode those horses every day. No saddle, nothing but a bridle.”
But the horse Witt thinks could be his next Manitoba Derby contender is a colt named American Witt, a three-year-old son of American Dubai. The colt has been knocking on the door in stakes company, and Witt believes distance will be his friend.
“He’s gonna be my big horse,” said Witt. “Believe me, he’s bad news.”
Witt knows a thing or two about being bad news for the competition. Before he turned his attention to horses, he was one of the most successful dirt track racers in the history of IMCA Modified racing. He won 258 features, eight consecutive regional championships, six consecutive state championships, and one national championship. He retired in 2007 the same way he did everything else. By winning.
“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.”
Witt dropped back to twenty-first place and made them all pay. With two laps to go he took the lead and won going away with half his car torn off and sparks flying off the wall.
“My crew said, ‘God dang man, we’ve never seen anybody drive like that,'” said Witt. “That was the last race of my career. I told him, ‘I think we did all we needed to.'”
These days, Witt does his winning at the racetrack instead of the speedway, and nobody does it better at Assiniboia Downs. From 2019-2025, he has compiled a record of unprecedented dominance at the Downs with trainer Jerry Gourneau at the helm for all but one of those years, culminating with their victory in the 2023 Manitoba Derby with longshot Mano Dura.
The best horse Witt owned before Mano Dura was Witt Six, who finished second in the 2015 Manitoba Derby and 2015 Canadian Derby before going on to win the Manitoba Mile, the R.J. Speers and the Gold Cup at Assiniboia Downs in 2016.
Witt’s success on the track mirrors his success in business. He built Affiliated Auto Glass from scratch, starting in 1983 while he was still racing cars and sleeping on a pallet on the office floor between races.
“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.”
Witt knows the highs and the lows that come with horse racing, but through it all, he keeps coming back for more. He’s won seven consecutive owner titles at the Downs, and with the firepower he’s bringing north in 2026, number eight seems almost inevitable. You have to win a lot of races to pay for all those horses?
“You damn sure do!” laughed Witt from the gym.
And then he went back to his workout.