Native Dancer
Authors: John Eisenberg
The Longest Shot:
Lil E. Tee and the Kentucky Derby
Cotton Bowl Days:
Growing Up wih Dallas and the Cowboys in the 1960s
From 33rd Street to Camden Yards:
An Oral History of the Baltimore Orioles
Copyright © 2003 by John Eisenberg
All rights reserved.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
.
First eBook Edition: May 2003
ISBN: 978-0-7595-2801-7
CONTENTS
This book could not have been written without the recollections of various trainers, jockeys, farm owners, racing officials,
fans, exercise riders, veterinarians, relatives of the principal figures, and members of the racing media. A list of those
quoted in the text:
Appley, Claude “Apples”—longtime Vanderbilt employee who worked as farmhand, groom, exercise rider, and stable manager beginning
in 1933; wife Mary also is quoted.
Atkinson, Ted—Hall of Fame jockey who rode for Greentree Stable; won 3,795 races in a twenty-one-year career.
Boniface, William—
Baltimore Sun
racing writer from 1948 to 1981.
Capps, Tim—Maryland-based author, historian, and racing executive who has worked for the Jockey Club, Maryland Horse Breeders’
Association, and Maryland Jockey Club.
Caras, Costy—son of Jamaica, New York, restaurant owner and protÉgÉ of New York track announcer Fred Caposella; was longtime
track announcer at Charles Town track in West Virginia; began career working for
Daily Racing Form
.
Curry, Frank—nephew of Eric Guerin.
Derr, John—longtime CBS radio and TV sports commentator and executive.
Deubler, Judy Ohl—young racing fan in the 1950s.
Dorfman, Leonard—longtime trainer who has worked the back-stretch of California tracks since the 1930s.
Florio, Clem—New York-area boxer and horseplayer in the 1940s and 1950s; later, racing journalist and track oddsmaker in Maryland.
Gilcoyne, Tom—historian at National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame in Saratoga; has followed the sport since the 1920s.
Harthill, Alex—Churchill Downs-based veterinarian for a half century.
Jerkens, Allen—New York-based trainer elected to Hall of Fame in 1975.
Kelly, Joe—longtime racing writer in Maryland; was vice president of Maryland Horseman’s Association in the early 1950s.
Kercheval, Ralph—former college and pro football star; managed Sagamore Farm from 1948 to 1958; his wife, Blanche, is also
quoted.
Koppett, Leonard—author and sportswriter in New York and San Francisco Bay Area since the 1940s.
Leblanc, Charles Ray—Eric Guerin’s first cousin; was jockey and later steward in Illinois and New Orleans.
Passmore, Billy—young jockey in early 1950s; became steward in Maryland.
Pate, Lulu Vanderbilt—daughter of Alfred Vanderbilt’s brother, George.
Pedersen, Pete—veteran racing official; has worked as steward, race-caller, steward’s aide, newspaper handicapper, paddock
judge, placing judge, and patrol judge at West Coast tracks.
Prince, Harold—Tony Award-winning theater producer-director known for successful musicals.
Roberts, Tommy—TV broadcaster and executive who has worked on many racing ventures since the 1950s.
Robinson, Jack—longtime veterinarian in California.
Roche, Clyde—Alfred Vanderbilt’s oldest lifelong friend.
Scott, Daniel W.—owner of Kentucky farm where Native Dancer was foaled in 1950.
Scott, Daniel W., III—son of Kentucky farm owner.
Sharp, Bayard—du Pont family heir and Vanderbilt friend who backed a racing stable and owned a horse farm in Delaware.
Shoemaker, Bill—Hall of Fame jockey; began career in California in 1949 and won 8,833 races.
Tannenbaum, Joe—racing writer at
Miami Daily News
in the 1950s, then longtime director of publicity at Gulfstream Park.
Trotter, Tommy—respected racing official; has held many posts throughout the country since the 1940s.
Vanderbilt, Alfred, III—eldest son of Native Dancer’s owner; mother is Jeanne; rode horses as a child and still rides for
pleasure; took up writing and music and has had a long career in public relations.
Vanderbilt, Heidi—daughter of Alfred and Jeanne Vanderbilt; rode show horses as a child; owns horse farm today.
Vanderbilt, Jeanne—Alfred Vanderbilt’s second wife, married to him from 1946 to 1956; resides in Paris today.
Winfrey, Carey—Bill Winfrey’s eldest son; editor in chief of
Smithsonian
magazine today.
Winfrey, Elaine—Bill Winfrey’s second wife, married to him from 1952 until his death in 1994.
T
he train pulled into Cincinnati’s Union Station early one morning in late April 1953. No passengers got on, no passengers
got off, no one even paid attention until a station mechanic on a routine check idly slid open a car door and stepped back
in amazement at the scene he had uncovered. A muscular grey horse stood on a bed of straw in the far corner of the car, next
to a black man wearing a hat.
“Is that… is that the Grey Ghost himself?” the mechanic stammered.
“It sure enough is,” the black man replied with a smile.
The mechanic opened his mouth without emitting a sound, stunned at his discovery. Then he began to shout: “Hey, everyone,
over here! You can’t miss this!”
Within moments a mob of commuters, laborers, and onlookers had gathered on the platform, straining for a glimpse of the train’s
famous passenger—a celebrity who would be hailed by
TV Guide
at the end of 1953 as one of America’s three most popular figures, along with entertainer Arthur Godfrey and host Ed Sullivan.
His stopover in Cincinnati, lasting all of five minutes, was deemed newsworthy enough for a story in the local paper the next
day. Fathers eating breakfast read the story and said to their families, “I wish I’d missed my train and gotten stuck at the
station.”
It was an epic time for mythmaking in America. In the aftermath of a depression and war, at the dawn of the television age,
the country was moving to the suburbs and learning to commune over heroes hatched in living rooms on flickering, black-and-white
TV sets. Out of the mists of the early 1950s rose a star as bright as any, a thoroughbred champion with blue-blood roots,
a knack for drama, and a name that would gain a permanent place in the nation’s vocabulary: Native Dancer.
Bred, owned, and championed by Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, the sporting scion of one of the country’s most celebrated families,
Native Dancer would finish first in twenty-one of twenty-two races in his career (the one loss was by a nose), securing a
place among horse racing’s legends. Although his story was suffused with the sweet whiff of the underdog—his canny young trainer,
Bill Winfrey, was raised on the dust and straw of Depression-era racing, and his jockey, Eric Guerin, was a blacksmith’s son
raised poor in Louisiana’s rural backwaters—at its essence, Native Dancer’s reign was about power, glory, and class at the
pinnacle of American society. He was a product of rarefied lineage and the finest farms and barns, blessed with physical and
mental endowments his bloodlines couldn’t explain, an odds-on favorite every time he raced. At a time when Americans saw their
country as wealthy and invincible, Vanderbilt and his horse constituted a national self-portrait.
The horse’s brief stop in Cincinnati was on the last leg of his trek from New York, where he was stabled, to Louisville’s
Churchill Downs, where he would run for racing’s ultimate glory in the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May 1953. The
nation was waiting for what it foresaw as a coronation, captivated by the colt’s undefeated record and agonizing habit of
seemingly waiting too long before making his move. Prior racing legends such as Man O’ War and Seabiscuit had inspired public
fervor, and the soaring arc of Native Dancer’s renown was similar and even higher in some ways. He was racing’s first matinee
idol, his triumphs witnessed by millions on coast-to-coast TV broadcasts. His popularity was evidence of the growing power
of the new medium; New York sportswriter Jimmy Cannon would later write that “Native Dancer probably sold as many Zeniths
as Milton Berle.”
His appeal was as simple as the times. Television cast a black-and-white picture. Native Dancer’s coat was grey. Anyone could
pick him out and cheer him down the stretch as he sprinted with his head slung low, veering through traffic until he was alone
in front. And cheer him they did: in bars, airports, train stations, living rooms, department stores—anywhere that people
gathered and gawked in front of TV sets, still awestruck by the ability to see what they previously had only been able to
hear.
The sight of Vanderbilt leading his horse into the winner’s circle became a Saturday afternoon TV staple and turned Native
Dancer into a star without peer. Thousands of fans crowded around the walking rings and saddling stalls before he raced, anxious
just to glimpse the granite monster weighing more than 1,200 pounds, yet possessing a burst of acceleration and a finishing
kick that left hardened horsemen groping for adjectives. “He was in the company of the gods, inspiring a reverence felt only
for other immortals such as Babe Ruth and Jim Thorpe,” racing author Bernard Livingston wrote years later. “It became routine
for bettors not to cash their winning tickets, instead pocketing them as souvenirs. A small piece of Native Dancer was more
important than any monies won.”
America in 1953 was a cocky sprawl just beginning an unwitting transition from the unified glory of World War II to the splintered
days of Vietnam and the sixties. The cold war with the Soviet Union was escalating as American soldiers fought grimly in Korea
and bomb shelters were erected across America amid growing concern that communists had infiltrated the country’s political
and cultural institutions. Seeking to soothe their jangled nerves, Americans had elected Dwight Eisenhower, a paternal army
general, as their president It was the last decade without cynicism, with lives slower, choices fewer, and joys less complicated
than what lay ahead. Racing was the playground of the thrill seekers. The sport was in a gritty golden age, perched atop the
nation’s sports scene. Every week 700,000 people spent at least a day at one of the country’s 130 tracks.