One Great Canadian

With a close proximity to Canada, a country where many of my relatives reside, and a place where I spent many summer afternoons venturing to the track with my father, I thought I'd give this current blog post a taste of some North-of-the-Border flavor.  Canadians, one and all, can be proud of their horse that won the 90th running of the Kentucky Derby in 1964. A true champ indeed. His name? Why of course, NORTHERN DANCER. In 1963, as a two-year-old at Fort Erie Race Track, Northern Dancer was ridden by Ron Turcotte in his first victory. He then won the Summer Stakes and the Coronation Futurity in Canada and the Remsen Stakes in New York. His record of seven victories in nine starts earned him the Canadian Juvenile Championship.

At three, Northern Dancer won a pair of Grade 1 stakes, the Flamingo Stakes and the Florida Derby with jockey Bill Shoemaker aboard. Before the running of the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, trainer Horatio Luro asked Shoemaker to make a commitment to ride Northern Dancer in the Kentucky Derby. But Shoemaker chose a colt he had never ridden named Hill Rise as his Derby mount. The unbeaten Hill Rise had an impressive campaign in California, winning the San Felipe Stakes and the Grade I Santa Anita Derby. Shoemaker campaigned hard to get Hill Rise as his mount, believing the colt represented his best chance for a Derby win. As a result of Shoemaker's decision, Bill Hartack became Northern Dancer's permanent jockey and guided him to victories in the Blue Grass and the Kentucky Derby, winning the Derby over a fast finishing Hill Rise in a record time of 2:00 minutes.  That record stood until it was broken by Secretariat in 1973. (Secretariat's record still stands today). Hartack and Northern Dancer won the Preakness Stakes, and finished third in the Belmont Stakes to Quadrangle and Roman Brother. After the Belmont, Northern Dancer won Canada's Queen's Plate by seven and a half lengths before tenderness in his left front tendon ended his racing career. He was named North America's champion three-year-old colt of 1964,  and Canadian Horse of the Year. In his two years of racing, Northern Dancer won 14 of his 18 races and never finished worse than third. In the Blood-Horse Magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century, Northern Dancer was ranked number 43.

Northern Dancer stood at stud at E.P. Taylor's Windfields’ Farm in Oshawa, Ontario until 1969, when he was moved to Windfields' Maryland farm, where he remained until his death. Northern Dancer was the most successful 20th century Thoroughbred sire. He has been named the 20th century's best sire of sires, producing multiple champions in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

In 1965, he became the first horse to ever be voted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. On its formation, he was part of the first group of inductees into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame at Saratoga in 1976. He was retired from stud in April 1987 at the age of 26. He died in 1990 and is memorialized at Windfields Farm in Oshawa, Ontario. In 1999, Canada Post honored the horse with his image placed on a postage stamp.

A residential street was named after Northern Dancer on the former site of the Greenwood Race Track in east-end Toronto. There is also a life size bronze statue of the horse outside Woodbine Race Track. 

HOW NORTHERN DANCER WON THE KENTUCKY DERBY: 

Two great jockeys were aboard great horses when the gates opened on 1964 Derby.  On Hill Rise was Willie Shoemaker, and on Canadian-bred Northern Dancer was Bill Hartack. Both jockeys had tons of experience, and both were multiple Derby winners. The overflow crowd suspected that the race was going to be a good one. They were not disappointed.  The winner would win in the fastest time yet recorded for a Kentucky Derby.The track was fast. As the horses broke from the starting gate, Northern Dancer stayed close to the inside, with Hill Rise, the favorite, behind him. Then the two horses were even, behind a wall of horses--and abruptly Hartack moved decisively with Northern Dancer at the five-furlong pole,  taking Shoemaker and Hill Rise by surprise. The two horses had been running side by side behind a wall of three horses. Hartack eased his horse away from the rail and Northern Dancer spurted in front of Hill Rise and to the outside. And he was just about gone. Shoemaker could not get his horse to contain Northern Dancer's nimble escape. But the race wasn't over. Hill Rise mounted a charge and closed ground,  but his rally was not quite enough. Northern Dancer won by a neck.

NOTE: This was the very first Kentucky Derby I ever watched on television. It is ironic that in 1963, the year Northern Dancer debuted at Fort Erie, it marked the very first year my father took me there to the races.