Think Empire Maker's A Derby Sure Thing? So Was Native Dancer In 1953
By: William F. Reed

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Mar. 27, 2003) - The unbeaten gray colt arrived in Louisville as the overwhelming favorite for the 1953 Kentucky Derby and the first equine superstar of the television age. He came from New York on a special train that included some of the nation's best known sports columnists as passengers. But instead of being able to chronicle Native Dancer's greatest victory, the scribes ended up having to write about what is arguably still the biggest upset in Derby history.

Born on March 27, 1950, at the Dan W. Scott farm outside Lexington, Ky., Native Dancer, a son of Polynesian out of the Discovery mare Geisha, was bred by his owner, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt of the famed Sagamore Farm in Maryland.

Taken back to Sagamore shortly after his birth, Native Dancer was broken by farm manager Ralph Kercheval, the former great University of Kentucky football star who still holds Southeastern Conference records for for punting yards (4,413 in 1933) and punting average (43.5 the same season).

As a 2-year-old, Native Dancer easily won all nine of his starts, seven of them stakes races. As author Bill Robertson observed, "He shattered no speed records, there was no occasion to...In virtually all his starts, which ranged from five furlongs to 1 1/16th miles, he left the impression of untapped resources."

Along with his brilliance, his size (around 16 hands tall) and gray color made him stick out in any field. The more he appeared in movie newsreels and on TV stations, the more popular he became. It also helped that his jockey, Eric Guerin, was personable and charming.

"This flying son of Polynesian, in the opinion of many, was more popular than Man o'War," wrote Grantland Rice. "The 'Gray Ghost' coming from behind or leading the pack became a national spectacle."

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In the spring of 1950, breeder Warner L. Jones of the Hermitage Farm in Prospect, Ky., also celebrated the birth of a colt. It wasn't so much that Jones thought he might have a classic winner as that the colt's dam, Isolde, had almost lost her life the previous spring while trying to deliver a foal. Only the work of Jones' good friend, Dr. Alex Harthill, saved Isolde.

"I had to completely dismember that foal inside of her to get it out," Harthill said. "There wasn't much room to work and I couldn't see what I was doing. I used a Bennsch saw - a fine piece of wire" - and when it was over, after six or seven hours of struggle, I was never so exhausted in my life. But it was worth it. Believe it or not, she got in foal that season."

As Harthill was on his way home from the farm he was stopped by police on US 42, ostensibly for speeding. The officers noticed the blood all over his clothing and began questioning him. But then Jones drove up, honking his horn and laughing.

He had sicced the cops on Harthill, knowing the vet would have a hard time explaining his bloody clothing.

The Isolde colt that was born in the spring of 1950, by the imported sire Royal Gem II, was purchased by Capt. Harry Guggenheim of Cain Hoy Stable and named Dark Star.

During his 2-year-old year, while the racing world was growing increasingly excited over Native Dancer, Dark Star won only half of his six starts. Nobody was raving about him. He never appeared on TV or in the movie newsreels.

Meanwhile, the excitement over Native Dancer was burgeoning. On April 18, he made his 3-year-old debut, winning a division of the Gotham Stakes by two lengths at New York's Aqueduct by an easy two lengths. A week later, he blew away his opposition by 4 ½ lengths in the Wood Memorial at the same track.

That made him 11-for-11 heading into the Derby. So when Dark Star won the Derby Trial the Tuesday before the 79th Derby, who cared? Not the Derby Day crowd of "more than 100,000," as it always was announced in those days. It let Dark Star get away at $24.90-to-$1, while betting Native Dancer and stablemate Social Outcast down to $7-to-$10.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the finish line.

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Derby historians have long debated what happened to Native Dancer in what turned out to be the only loss of his Hall of Fame career. Some agree with jockey Guerin and owner Vanderbilt, who both contended that Money Broker, ridden by Al Poppara, cost Native Dancer the race by intentionally bumping the gray colt in the first turn, forcing Guerin to take him back and run wide most of the trip.

"A blind man could see that," Vanderbilt said. "It knocked him back and it shook up Guerin. It probably shook up Guerin more than the horse." But others point out that at the time the bumping occured, there still was three-quarters of a mile to go and that a truly great horse would have been able to overcome that adversity.

Poppara denied any chicanery.

"There were a lot of horses together when we hit the turn," he said. "I couldn't get back of Guerin's horse, so I tried to circle him. I actually thought we had cleared Native Dancer all right, but my horse changed stride and I heard Guerin yell."

Naurally, Guerin came in for his share of the criticism. As a member of the Churchill Downs board of directors said to author Robertson, "He [Guerin] took that colt everywhere on the race track except the ladies' room."

To his credit, Moreno immediately took Dark Star to the lead, where he was able to avoid trouble while cutting out modest fractions of :23 4/5 for the first quarter-mile, :47 4/5 for the half, 1:12 1/5 for six furlongs and 1:36 2/5 for the mile.

So that meant Moreno had enough horse left to withstand Guerin and Native Dancer, when they came flying at him in the stretch. The final margin was a head, and the winning time of 2:02 for a mile and a quarter was the fifth fastest Derby at that time.

Needless to say, the crowd and the TV audience were shocked. After all, nobody had ever seen Native Dancer lose.

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As sometimes has been the case, the best horse didn't win the 1953 Derby. No disrespect intended toward Dark Star, who ran the race of his life at the right time. But after leading for a mile in the Preakness, he bowed a tendon and never raced again.

Native Dancer, on the other hand, outlasted the game Jamie K. In both the Preakness and the Belmont. He also romped in the Withers, the Dwyer, the Arlington Classic, the Travers and the American Derby.

But he also bruised a heel in the American Derby, putting him on the sidelines and ending any chance to take on handicap champion Tom Fool, the Greentree Stable star who was superbly trained by John M. Gaver and ridden by Ted Atkinson.

As a 4-year-old in 1953, Tom Fool was 10-for-10. He had only one close race. At the year's end, he wrested Horse of the Year honors away from Native Dancer, who had been one of the few 2-year-olds to win racing's highest honor.

Before Native Dancer's injury, Ben A. Jones, the immortal Calumet Farm trainer, said this to Grantland Rice: "Tell Vanderbilt to keep his horse away from Tom Fool, if he don't want to get licked."

As a 4-year-old in 1954, Native Dancer raced only three times before suffering a recurrence of a forefoot injury, forcing Vanderbilt to retire him. But that year he won at six furlongs carrying 126 pounds, at a mile carrying 130, and at seven furlongs carrying 137.

After the 1953 loss to Dark Star, Alfred G. Vanderbilt never ran another horse in the Kentucky Derby.

Native Kentuckian William F. Reed has been a sports writer in various capacities for 43 years and has missed covering the Kentucky Derby a mere two times since 1966. He has been a high-profile sports writer in Kentucky for the Commonwealth's two largest daily newspapers, the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader and was a national columnist for Sports Illustrated, covering among other sports, Thoroughbred horse racing and college basketball. Reed currently pens a column for the Louisville Sports Report and covered Kentucky Derby 128 for kentuckyderby.com. He will be filing frequent installments for CDSN's (Churchill Downs Simulcasting Network) websites throughout 2003.

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