“People say to me you’ll never get another horse like True Roman,’’ Johannesen said this week.

“I say to them ‘I’ve had one champion, how are you going?’.

“It’s a fact, you don’t even look for another True Roman. He’s a once in a lifetime horse.”

True Roman amazed Johannesen when he started training the horse at Sebastian in 1982.

Nothing has changed. True Roman is still alive and well at age 34 at Johannesen’s Elmore property.

“He’s healthier than me this old boy,’’ Johannesen said.

“He’s still got a bit of bounce in him. He likes getting out for a walk and he likes to get out in the back paddock and have a look at what the other horses are doing.

 “If I thought he was suffering in any way he wouldn’t be here.

“He knows what’s going on around the place.

“He’s still got remarkably good skin. If you feel his coat, it still has that oily feel to it.

“I suppose he’d be 100 years old if he was a human, so you can’t expect him to be doing handstands.

“Overall, he’s doing very well for himself.”

Australasia’s premier trotter in the 1980s, True Roman won 73 races from 135 starts, including the 1988 Inter-Dominion Championship and every other classic trotting race on the calendar.

A genuine superstar of the track, True Roman was inducted into the Victorian Harness Racing Hall of Fame last month.

“If I knew exactly what makes a champion, I would have had more than one,’’ Johannesen said.

“This horse was so strong, he had unbelievable strength.

“He was a great chaser. One night we took him to Kapunda in South Australia for a marathon race.

“He paced away that night and when we clocked him on he was 13 seconds behind the leader.

“He still got up and won. It was an unbelievable run.”

Johannesen said the secret to True Roman’s success and longevity was the care shown to the horse in its younger years.

While many of today’s trotting stars are pushed to chase big money in two and three-year-old races, Johannesen always made True Roman’s health his first priority.

“He’s always been well looked after,’’ Johannesen said.

“He raced against the best every year he raced. From a two-year-old right through he raced in classic races.

“We never pushed him as a young horse though. He only had four starts as a two-year-old and won two of them.

“As a three-year-old he had 10 starts and won eight, but then as a four-year-old we left him out for the entire spring because he was getting hard handicaps against older horses.

“We didn’t want to run him into the ground. That helped him as an older horse.

“I always promised myself that I wouldn’t run him off hopeless marks against ordinary horses. He was too good a horse to do that to.”

Gavin Lang’s partnership with True Roman also played a key role in the trotters’ longevity.

The master reinsman drove True Roman to 62 of his 73 career wins.

 “Gavin looked after him so much, he had a great affinity with him,’’ Johannesen said.

“He always had the horse in mind. He’d give him an easy run and win on him by three inches and cop a reprimand from the stewards.

“Other drivers these days would want to show off, give the horse a harder run and win my 50 metres.

“Gavin’s attitude helped the horse with his longevity.

“I remember I drove the horse one night and won, but Gavin gave me a severe reprimand because I used the whip more times on the horse in that race than Gavin did in his entire career.”

Lang was in the sulky for True Roman’s greatest triumph – the 1988 Inter-Dominon Final at Moonee Valley.

At the time, few people knew that Lang probably shouldn’t have driven the champ that night.

“Gavin had done his shoulder through the week and he did ask me if I wanted to put someone else on the horse,’’ Johannesen said.

“Gavin was worried the horse would pull too hard for him because of his shoulder injury.

“I didn’t want anyone else driving the horse. We decided to have a go at getting the lead and just let the horse roll along which would help Gavin.

“The horse went straight to the front and won. Coming back to scale Gavin couldn’t lift his arm up to salute the crowd because his shoulder was so sore.”

Johannesen said True Roman’s will to win was one of his greatest attributes.

The horse is now showing the same determination in his will to live.

 “(Vet) John Brown checked his heart at one stage and he asked me did I want to know how big his heart was,’’ Johannesen said.

“I said ‘no need, I know it’s as big as they come’.