Native Dancer

Trainers of the late 1800's to early 1940's believed that gray horses were genetically inferior. Gray Thoroughbreds fell out of favor and some went so far as to say they brought bad luck to a sport surrounded in superstition. The line was so compact (no one wanted to breed into it) that all gray TB's today can be traced back to the Alcock Arabian foaled in 1704. Up until 1940, race secretaries still held "Gray Only" races offering what the believed an even field for grays to compete, in an effort to bring women to the track.

Of course, this was all before 1952, when "The Gray Ghost" started shaking up the racing world. He was an icon in a black and white tv generation. Watching on their Zenith's, America could see Native Dancer running in the middle of the pack of black, suddenly surge ahead and win.

Owned by Alfred Vanderbilt JR, Native Dancer was from blue blood roots. Alfred's story alone is remarkable in work ethic, he had no trouble mucking a stall, and was found almost every morning at the track watching his horses workout, overseeing their care, and surrounding himself with what many of the wealthy owners would have considered people below their class. He made breeding decisions starting as a teenager and took particular pleasure in creating names that meant something, usually tying back to the sire and dam's names. Native Dancer was out of Geisha and sired by Polynesian, reminding Alfred of a photo he took of dancers in the South Pacific. The Gray Ghost was foaled chocolate brown, shed out to a dark steel gray and then spent the rest of his life (as all grays do) in a color transition. At the time of retirement his coat, mane, and tail were pure white.

Native Dancer ran 22 races in 3 years, winning all but one, the 1953 Kentucky Derby. The race was lost by a nose and is controversial to this day. He was purposefully knocked around the track by another horse in the early moments of the race and couldn't manage to make up the distance in time. He was so famous, he graced the cover of TIME magazine in 1954.

He was a powerful horse, almost appearing too large to be an efficient runner. He was not always a kind horse, he pulled an exercise rider off his back, took a finger off of a groom whom he did not know, and in retirement flung a few folks across the paddock. The groom he did know, Lester Murray, would nap in his stall and then use the Dancer's tail to pull himself upright. Vanderbilt's children were allowed to run around in his stall and play with him. Those that he knew and loved felt the privilege of his trust, those outside that circle were quickly, often violently, denied by him.

Knowing he is behind my Whisper twice, by way of Raise A Native and Northern Dancer, is amazing. It's a piece of a time gone by standing vibrant in front of me. Of course I never met him, he passed more than 10 years before I was born. But I love his story, his legend. Calling him the Gray Ghost in life must have impacted the great stallions spirit, they say he is still very much around, haunting Churchill Downs to this day.