The Dancer

I just finished reading Native Dancer by John Eisenberg, the writer who co-authored Edgar Prado's book on Barbaro. I read it as part of my research on other thoroughbreds who have become popular heroes and I highly recommend it.

Eisenberg clearly did his homework, researching not only the horse but his owner, Alfred Vanderbilt, jockey and trainer. It is a tribute to the glory days of racing--the era when television first began to telecast horse racing and it was not unusual for 30,000 people to go to Belmont to watch a big race.

Native Dancer was by all accounts a Superstar. He graced the cover of Time magazine and the only race he ever lost in his entire career was the Kentucky Derby, by a head to a long shot in a fluke. He won just about every other big name race there ever was: the Preakness, Belmont, Travers, Whitney, Jockey Club Gold Cup, you name it. He had a nerve wracking habit of coming from behind--often at the very last second, and of making up the distance with an amazing stride. Thrilling. Exciting. And goose bump producing.

But perhaps the most memorable thing about Native Dancer was his color: grey. There had never been a Superstar grey thoroughbred before him and there were actually superstitions about grey horses. But his unique coloring actually added to his appeal. You could always find him on the black and white television screens across America.

But there was more: "No one has ever quite documented how or why the legend of a champion grows," Eisenberg quotes Time magazine. "The present has its press agents as the past had its poets. . . But a legend's feats endure because of what he adds: an undying spirit of competition, an ability to inspire awe, a willingness to gamble on losing, the guts to lose and rise again--flair, class, style or what Hemingway once termed 'grace under pressure'--it is the quality that breeds sport legend."

Native Dancer had it. So did Barbaro.

The fascinating appeal of the thoroughbred is not dead. It is just in need of another Superstar. Soon.