The Upset Heard Around the Racing World: Dark Star and the 1953 Kentucky Derby

Apr 26, 2023 Vance Hanson/Brisnet.com

70 years ago the world experienced a remarkable upset

Those two years continue to resonate in Derby history. This spring marks 75 years since Citation commenced his run to Triple Crown glory in the 1948 Derby, and 70 since one of the most remarkable upsets ever to occur underneath the Twin Spires.

The victim in that 1953 Derby was Native Dancer. Nicknamed the “Gray Ghost of Sagamore,” a reference to owner Alfred G. Vanderbilt’s Sagamore Farm, Native Dancer is widely considered racing’s first television star. Not only did his gray coat make him easily identifiable to viewers on the black and white screens of the time, Native Dancer had a serious penchant for winning.

Native Dancer never lost a race in advance of the Kentucky Derby, and never lost one after. Twenty-one wins in 22 starts is what’s inscribed on his Hall of Fame plaque. But the single one that got away perhaps is most remembered about his career.

The perpetrator of that perfection-denying coup was a colt named Dark Star. His relatively close ties to the Louisville area suggest that generations of local schoolchildren should know his name, too.

Unlike nearly all Kentucky-born Derby winners, who generally hail from the Bluegrass region around Lexington, Dark Star was born and raised at Hermitage Farm in Goshen, which lies next to Louisville in neighboring Oldham County. His breeder, Warner L. Jones Jr., was a descendant of Churchill Downs’ founders and would serve on the track’s board of directors for a half-century and as its chairman for eight years.

Dark Star was sired by *Royal Gem II, an Australian champion Jones had purchased for $100,000 and imported to stand at Hermitage. Dark Star was produced by Isolde, a daughter of *Bull Dog and the 1934 Kentucky Oaks winner Fiji. At the 1951 Keeneland summer yearling sale, Dark Star was sold for $6,500 to Capt. Harray F. Guggenheim, the noted philanthropist, former U.S. ambassador to Cuba, and owner of Newsday.

As a two-year-old Dark Star was trained by Moody Jolley, whose son, LeRoy, would saddle Foolish Pleasure (1975) and the filly Genuine Risk (1980) to Derby victories. Dark Star was precocious enough to race at the prestigious winter meet at Hialeah in Florida, breaking his maiden on Valentine’s Day 1952 and then winning a division of the Hialeah Juvenile by two lengths, both races over a straight three furlongs.

Making only one start in the spring, a third-place effort in the Juvenile Stakes at Belmont Park, Dark Star reemerged in the fall. After winning a six-furlong allowance, Dark Star was pitted against Native Dancer in the Belmont Futurity, then one of the world’s richest races. Already a winner of his first seven starts, Native Dancer was a heavy odds-on favorite and did not disappoint, finishing more than six lengths ahead of the third-placed Dark Star.

Dark Star made one more start at two, in the Champagne Stakes, but finished last in a field of 13. While Native Dancer entered winter quarters with a 9-for-9 record, Dark Star had shown little indication he would be able to threaten the champion in the following spring’s classics.

There was something both new and familiar regarding Dark Star in the early months of 1953. After Moody Jolley left the employ of Guggenheim’s Cain Hoy Stable to take a training position with Claiborne Farm, Dark Star was sent to Eddie Hayward, who had started his career in racing as a jockey.

By mid-April, though, Dark Star still had not served notice that he’d developed into a top flight Derby contender. After a narrow allowance win over seven furlongs at Hialeah, Dark Star next finished 13th in a field of 17 in the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. He then finished second in a seven-furlong allowance at Keeneland to Correspondent, who days later would register a victory in the Blue Grass Stakes.

Dark’s Star final prep occurred in the one-mile Derby Trial at Churchill Downs, which was held just four days before the Derby itself. This effort, a four-length victory in the third fastest renewal in Trial history up to that time, actually turned some heads.

“I just wish they had run the Derby today,” Hayward said that Tuesday evening of Derby week.

Facile victories by Native Dancer in the Gotham Stakes and Wood Memorial in New York still suggested the gray was virtually invincible. A throng of over 100,000 at Churchill Downs on Derby Day agreed, sending the undefeated colt and his entrymate, Social Outcast, off as the 7-10 favorite in a field of 11. Dark Star started as the fifth choice at nearly 25-1.

Contemporary opinion and decades of historical narrative chalk up Dark Star’s upset victory to trip; Dark Star worked out a great one, while Native Dancer did not. Dark Star made the lead soon after the start under jockey Hank Moreno and encountered little to no difficulty throughout the entire mile and a quarter. Native Dancer, meanwhile, broke well and suffered no mishap passing the stands the first time, though he might have been farther off the pace at that stage than was customary or expected.

Although no decent and clear film footage of the incident appears to have survived, Native Dancer was soundly bumped by a rival entering the clubhouse turn while racing in midpack, resulting in the loss of several additional lengths. Nonetheless, with a half-mile to go, Native Dancer was well positioned to pounce, having whittled the deficit between him and Dark Star down to a manageable 2 1/2 lengths.

Despite the early trouble, and jockey Eric Guerin’s belief he hadn’t handled the track, Native Dancer kept grinding and ate into Dark Star’s lead throughout the long homestretch. But the wire came a few strides too soon, as Dark Star held on for a massive upset by a head. The winning time of 2:02 over a fast track was swift for that era.

The chart caller was compelled to proclaim Native Dancer as “probably best” after describing his adventurous Derby trip in the race footnotes, and racing fans certainly didn’t accept the result at face value. Three weeks later in the Preakness, Native Dancer started at an even shorter price of 1-5, while Dark Star was sent off at 11-1, surely one of the biggest rejections of Derby form in Preakness betting history.

Dark Star attempted to steal the Preakness just as he had the Kentucky Derby, but weakened to fifth. He was later found to have bowed a tendon, necessitating his immediate retirement. Native Dancer won both the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, but only scraped by both times by a neck.

Although peaking as a racehorse in the span of five days at Churchill Downs in the spring of 1953, Dark Star will forever be recalled as the only horse ever to have beaten Native Dancer. As the Washington Post’s Walter Haight wrote in the aftermath of the Derby, “[Dark Star] fell on Kentucky and the thump was heard around the turf world.”