A Diamond Birthday to Celebrate · 1:08am May 28th, 2021
Diamonds, they are often found 'In the Rough'.
They come in many shapes and sizes.
But the most sought after feature is the brilliant fire that shines inside the clarity the finished gem.
Sixty years ago today, May 27, 1961, a raw unfinished diamond was delivered, on the grounds of E.P. Taylor's Windfields Farm in Southern Ontario, Canada, just outside Oshawa. The foal was born quite late in the season as Thoroughbreds go. The end of May being seen as almost too late for a foal to have a much of a chance of succeeding on the track in age graded races (two and three year old) such as the famous 'Classics' of the 'Triple Crown'. Any success was likely to come in more age open races when they were older, four years and up. Worse yet, the colt was, in a word, small. Almost too small.
At a yearling sale in 1962, no one was interested something that more resembled a child's riding pony than the Thoroughbred that it was supposed to be, despite being a grandson of the great Italian stallion Nearco. In the end, Taylor kept the little Bay colt with his three white socks, and the skewed blaze on his face. It was probably the best decision E.P. Taylor ever made.
The colt was shipped to Fort Erie on the Ontario U.S. Border to train under Horatio Luro, a respected Argentine born American Thoroughbred trainer, and hopefully see some success. Luro wanted to geld the uppity colt, who despite not being per-se 'mean' definitely had a very assertive and dominant personality, which Taylor totally refused to hear of.
Blessed with good body mechanics, and a surprising amount of muscle, about 940lbs, packed on to a frame that many horsemen guessed maybe reached 15 hands high, 15.1 if the colt was feeling particularly proud. The headstrong son of Neartic, out of Natalma, named 'Northern Dancer', for his Canadian birth, and his mothers sire, the great stallion 'Native Dancer', who was also known as 'The Gray Ghost' was ready to make his debut.
On August 2,1963, Northern Dancer made his racing debut at the Fort Erie Racetrack in Ontario, with a young apprentice rider by the name of Ronnie Turcotte in the saddle. Instructed to just hand ride the colt the first time out and not use the crop at all, Ronnie, near the head of the pack as they came into the home stretch, forgot his instructions and in a bid for the win, gave the colt a tap of the whip, and in Turcotte's own words Northern Dancer simply 'exploded' under him. The colt bolting from the pack to a clear victory by eight lengths.
This explosive running style can be seen in some of 'The Dancer's' descendants, such as Australian Champion Winx, who shares his ability to perform a very rapid stride cycle. Winx being recorded with modern high resolution video with a stride rate of 2.7 strides per second, as compared to a typical rate of 2.3 sps for Thoroughbreds on average.
In his next start Turcotte was already signed to another horse, Ramblin' Man, who would best Northern Dancer in a thrilling speed duel, in the Vandal Stakes. Though Turcotte would report to Luro after the race that 'The Dancer' was probably the best two-year-old in the country, if not the world.
Northern Dancer would finish out his two-year-old season with three major stakes wins at Woodbine in Toronto, Canada and at Aquaduct Racetrack in New York state, bringing home the bragging rights as Canada's top 2-year old.
In 1964, 'The Dancer' would continue to impress on the track, having been moved to the Southern US, winning the Flamingo Stakes, Florida Derby, and Bluegrass Stakes on his way to a berth in the Kentucky Derby. Despite his successes and still being though by some as 'too small', despite being only an inch or so shorter than War Admiral, the Triple Crown winning son of Man O'War, and the famous 'Little Horse with a Big Heart' Seabicuit, Northern Dancer would look to silence his critics in 'The Run for the Roses'.
Rider Bill Hartack, would comment after the Bluegrass Stakes, "He is a small horse, but he has lots of brawn and lots of guts."
The Kentucky Derby, is sometimes referred to as 'The Fastest Two-Minutes in Sports', and the 1964 edition would prove that precisely, as Northern Dancer would best a field of twelve, stopping the clock at a flat 2:00 minutes, a race and track record that would stand for the next nine years, until 'The Dancer's' old Canadian Jockey, Ron Turcotte would show up atop a 'Big Red Machine' in 1973 and set the record for the next fifty years ... or more.
Northern Dancer would follow this two weeks later a blanket of Blackeyed Susans winning the Preakness and taking the first two legs of the American Triple Crown that hadn't been claimed since Citation in 1948, and a week later officially celebrated his 3rd birthday.
The Triple Crown would go unclaimed for another nine years, as Northern Dancer would finish third in a tight Belmont, after several riders severely underestimated a horse named Quadrangle, allowing him to build a substantial lead going into the home stretch and was unable to save enough power to close in the end.
Asked if he felt disappointed in the horse after the Belmont Hartack replied, "How can it be a disappointment when a horse runs his heart out for you? He certainly didn't disgrace himself – not to me, anyway."
Returning to Canada, for that nation's most prestigious race, and longest continuously run horse race in North America, The Queen's Plate at Woodbine, the Mayor of Toronto presented Northern Dancer with the Key to the City. The key itself had been carved from a large carrot, and 'The Dancer' promptly ate the honor when it was presented to him.
On June 20th Northern Dancer would log his last win, claiming the Queen's Plate, in a winning time of 2:02-1/5 just one fifth of a second off the track record, becoming the only Kentucky Derby - Queen's Plate dual winner in North American racing history.
A few weeks later 'The Dancer' would pull up lame during a workout at Belmont Park complications of a shin splint. The condition was not life threatening, but it functionally ended Northern Dancers Racing Career. But it seemed the best the little horse had to offer was yet to come ...
With a career record of fourteen wins from eighteen starts and never finishing worse than 3rd, and a then record bank roll of $580,000 for a Canadian Horse. The plucky little colt was then sent off to stud duty at Taylor's Winfield Farm outside Toronto, where he'd been foaled three years earlier. His initial stud fee was $10,000, and a service ramp was built in the breeding shed at Windfields Oshawa to permit the little stallion to service mares much taller than he was.
His first sired foals would arrive in the spring of 1966 and reach the track in 1968, with ten of the twenty one becoming stakes winners lead by Viceregal, who would be named Canada's Horse of the Year at age two.
Nineteen Sixty-eight would also mark the biggest error of E.P.Taylor's career with Northern Dancer, when he let a bay colt out of the mare Flaming Page, go to auction fetching a respectable $84,000 from Irish trainer Vincent O'Brien on behalf of American Industrialist C.W. Englehard Jr. The colt, later named Nijinski, after the ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinski, would go on to become the last winner of the English Triple Crown in 1970. For Taylor, Nijinsky would always be 'the one that slipped away'.
From there the floodgates opened, Northern Dancer moved from Oshawa, Ontario to Maryland in the US.and his fees began to accelerate as well, from $25,000 in 1971 to $50,000, to eventually a record $1,000,000 by the mid '80s, or slightly over $2,000,000 as of 2021. This massive uptake in his stud fees was not just the result of his own progeny's abilities on the track, but by their performance in the breeding shed as well. Northern Dancer's sons and daughters both begot champions on the track, and those offspring went on to sire more winners, who went on to produce yet more winners and producers, in prodigious numbers across all continents. Northern Dancer's legacy became a who's who of the modern thoroughbred world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Dancer_sire_line
There is only one other stallion that I am aware of, the legendary "Eclipse" born over two-hundred years ago, and who is a leading contender for 'father of them all' can boast of a legacy comparable to Northern Dancer's, and though now gone from this world for over 30 years, 'The Dancer's" legacy continues to grow.
The little colt that no one would consider at auction in 1962, had become something far more than just a good stallion. He'd become a modern father of the Thoroughbred breed. To use a phrase from George R. R. Martin's magnum opus, 'A Song of Ice and Fire', Northern Dancer had become, "The Stallion that Mounts the World".
In the Light of History
It is possible for A Small Horse
to cast
A GIANT Shadow.
Some horses are lucky enough to establish a family tree,
Northern Dancer gave the world a Forest.
Sir Barton (One Old Racehorse)
🐴💪👌