Native Dancer (17 page)

F
ive days after the Gotham, an unequivocal challenge was issued to the popular assumption that Native Dancer was so superior
to the rest of his three-year-old class that he couldn’t lose the Kentucky Derby. A California-based colt named Correspondent
blazed to a five-length victory in the Blue Grass Stakes, a major pre-Derby test at Keeneland, in Lexington, Kentucky, outclassing
two horses that had excelled during the winter racing season in Florida: Straight Face, winner of the Flamingo Stakes, and
Money Broker, winner of the Florida Derby.

With Eddie Arcaro directing him, Correspondent set a track record on a sunny Thursday afternoon, covering a mile and an eighth
in 1:49, one-fifth of a second faster than Coaltown’s winning time in the 1948 Blue Grass. Coaltown was the memorable Calumet
speedster who had opened a six-furlong lead on Citation in the Kentucky Derby before finishing second to his stablemate and
eventual Triple Crown winner, so even though the Blue Grass was Correspondent’s first stakes victory and just his sixth win
in fourteen career starts, he was running in fast company now.

Owned by Gordon Guiberson, a Texas businessman now living in California, and trained by Wally Dunn, a Canadian-born horseman
now based at Santa Anita, Correspondent instantly dropped to 2-1 in the Kentucky Derby future book in Caliente, Mexico, as
the clear second choice behind Native Dancer. The nation’s three-year-olds had been competing against each other through the
winter in California and Florida and the early spring in New York, Maryland, and Kentucky, and the picture was finally beginning
to crystallize as the Derby neared.

Tahitian King, the colt who had nearly upset the Dancer in the Futurity, had failed to fill out while wintering in New Orleans
and was running well below his prior form; he was now deemed a long shot even to run in the Derby. Laffango, winner of the
other division of the Gotham, was out after experiencing swelling in his left front ankle following his impressive victory.
So much for the two horses weighted closest to the Dancer on the Experimental Free Handicap ranking of 1952 two-year-olds.

With those two out and Calumet Farm failing to produce a dangerous springtime three-year-old for only the second time since
the end of the war, the horses emerging as the top threats to the Grey Ghost were Royal Bay Gem, Straight Face, and now Correspondent
Royal Bay Gem was a late-blooming overachiever, an undersized black colt who had sold for just $7,500 as a yearling, and at
first glance, appeared incapable of racing even a mile without faltering. He had made twenty-two starts, mostly in allowance
races, as a two-year-old, winning only three with a late-running style. But his owner, a white-haired Texan named Eugene Constantin,
and his bow-tied trainer, Clyde Troutt, kept believing in him and running him in Florida early in 1953, and their faith finally
paid off. The Gem beat eighteen other horses, including Straight Face, to win a wild Everglade Stakes; his jockey, Jimmy Combest,
rallied him from fifteenth on the first turn to a two-length victory. He then came from far back in the Flamingo Stakes and
Fountain of Youth Handicap to finish second in both. In his most recent start, the Chesapeake Stakes, at Bowie, Maryland,
he was last in a fifteen-horse field in the early going, then charged through the pack to win by two lengths. With his gaunt
frame and lack of stature, he didn’t look the part of a Kentucky Derby horse, but his formidable late move was a good fit
for the race, which always had a big field.

Straight Face was a more typical Derby horse, a long-legged bay sired by Count Fleet and bred and owned by Jock Whitney’s
Green-tree. He was so contrary as a yearling that he had been gelded and held out of competition until August 1952 while Tiger
Skin raced as the stable’s top two-year-old, but Tiger Skin was put to death after fracturing a leg in October and Straight
Face emerged, winning two stakes races in Kentucky late in 1952 and then the Flamingo. He had come out of Florida with a sore
knee, and Correspondent had put him in his place in the Blue Grass, but with his breeding and long stride, he was still regarded
as a rising threat.

Other horses in the mix included Invigorator, who had finished in the money in nineteen of twenty-five starts and would have
Bill Shoemaker, the nation’s hottest young jockey, on him in the Derby; Ram o’ War, a long shot who had won a division of
the Fountain of Youth; and Money Broker, who had run in midwestern claiming and allowance races as a two-year-old but leaped
forward at three, finishing second in the Louisiana Derby, first in the Florida Derby, and third in the Blue Grass. Winfrey
and Vanderbilt were also considering running Social Outcast, who had finished fourth in the Chesapeake Stakes.

Correspondent was ahead of them all after having won the Blue Grass so impressively. Sired by Khaled—soon to gain fame as
the sire of Swaps, the 1955 Kentucky Derby winner and later a popular handicap champion—Correspondent didn’t have a typical
Derby rÉsumÉ. He had gone winless as a two-year-old, finally breaking his maiden in his seventh career start, a seven-furlong
allowance at Santa Anita in late January 1953. A third-place finish in the Santa Anita Derby on February 21 had hinted at
what was to come, but no one could have foreseen how brilliantly he would bloom upon arriving in Kentucky in early April as
a fringe Derby horse.

With Arcaro on him—others had ridden him as he competed against Decorated and Calumet’s Chanlea through the winter at Santa
Anita—Correspondent easily outran Money Broker in a six-furlong allowance at Keeneland on April 10, then just missed setting
the track record for seven furlongs in another allowance a week later. That day, Arcaro went to the whip when a long shot
named Dark Star posed a challenge in the stretch, and Correspondent pulled away easily.

Straight Face was still the betting favorite in the Blue Grass six days later, the public choosing to put its faith in a Greentree
colt with more than $150,000 in career earnings and a better record than Correspondent in stakes races. But as 10,824 fans
watched at Lexington’s intimate track, the second choice proved far superior to the favorite. Arcaro took him to the front
and set a scorching pace—22⅘ seconds for the first quarter mile, 464/5 for the half—and when Straight Face and Money Broker
began to close on the far turn, Arcaro let out the reins and shook his stick, and Correspondent took off. The colt was in
front by three lengths as he entered the stretch and never stopped pulling away.

“I don’t know that there’s a three-year-old in the country that could have beaten that colt today,” said Greentree’s trainer,
John Gaver, who had traveled from New York to saddle Straight Face. Teddy Atkinson, Straight Face’s jockey, refused to indulge
reporters wanting him to compare Arcaro’s horse to Native Dancer. “There’s no common ground to make a comparison yet,” Atkinson
said.

Arcaro dressed quickly after the race. A private plane was waiting to take him to New York, where in forty-eight hours he
would race against Native Dancer in the Wood Memorial, the final Derby prep race on the East Coast. Arcaro was booked on Social
Outcast, Vanderbilt’s second-string three-year-old. The jockey’s choice for a Kentucky Derby mount was down to two, Correspondent
or Social Outcast, and while the choice seemed obvious now, Arcaro refused to admit it.

“I told Mr. Vanderbilt that I’m coming to New York with an open mind, so you won’t get any answers out of me!” Arcaro shouted
goodnaturedly to reporters.

“I’ll bet you’ve got a lot in the back of your mind, though, Eddie,” one reporter said.

“I guess I have,” Arcaro said, “but I’m not going to tell you newspaper guys.”

Arcaro, at thirty-seven, was racing’s biggest star, its Rocky Marciano, its Joe DiMaggio, the athlete-cum-celebrity whose
name resonated well beyond his sport’s boundaries. Winner of five Kentucky Derbys and a pair of Triple Crowns—on Whirlaway
in 1941 and Cita-

tion in 1948—he was a character Damon Runyon might have invented, brash and big-nosed (hence his nickname, Banana Nose), small
and strong-armed, gifted and glamorous. Champion horses came and went, but Arcaro was always present, the familiar, flamboyant
jockey who loved to tell stories and dance at nightclubs, yet still dominated his peers with a matchless blend of coordination,
unerring judgment, and strength.

Born in Cincinnati in 1916, he had left school at fourteen, become a jockey at fifteen, and started riding for Calumet at
eighteen. He won his first Derby in 1938 and led the nation in earnings for the first time in 1940, then again in 1942, 1949,
1950, and 1952 as long associations with Calumet and Greentree served him well. He was still in his prime, having won four
Triple Crown races on four different horses since 1950, including the Derby the year before on Hill Gail. Gregarious and glib,
he was beloved by reporters and was the darling of the manly racing crowd that admired his talent and winked at his lifestyle.

“He was the Babe Ruth of our game,” recalled longtime
Daily Racing Form
columnist Joe Hirsch, a close friend. “There were always people around him. I said when he died [in 1996] that it was the
first time he’d ever been alone. He was just a great people person.”

“I conducted a poll in 1955 at Garden State Park: I asked fans if they could name the horse that had won the Triple Crown
in 1948,” TV executive Tommy Roberts recalled. “Only about 20 percent knew it was Citation. This was just seven years later.
They didn’t know Citation. But they all knew Eddie Arcaro.”

Even his dark moments were imbued with a certain allure. In 1942, before the film patrol was popular, he had intentionally
smashed his horse into one ridden by a rival whose horse had hit his in a prior race. The rival flew into the infield and
Arcaro was suspended indefinitely after admitting to stewards he was “trying to kill the s.o.b.” It was an embarrassing blemish
on his record, but to many fans, merely indicative of the passion that made him such a great jockey.

He had ridden only occasionally for Vanderbilt over the years, seldom on the stable’s top horses. Vanderbilt would surely
have used him more, but poor timing had interfered: Vanderbilt’s stable hadn’t been strong enough during and right after the
war for Arcaro to commit to it under a contract arrangement, and Arcaro was heavily booked when Vanderbilt’s stable made its
comeback starting in the late 1940s. Vanderbilt had ended up putting Guerin under contract after the young Cajun, whom Arcaro
had mentored, rode Bed o’ Roses and Next Move to so many big wins. Thus, although Arcaro, America’s jockey, was a perfect
fit for the Dancer, Guerin had the mount.

Did Arcaro want the mount on the Dancer? “I’m sure; and I’m also sure Eddie tried to submarine Guerin a few times,” Joe Hirsch
said. But as the Derby neared, Arcaro was mostly upset that fans and experts were already comparing the Grey Ghost to racing’s
greatest champions, even though the Dancer had only made ten starts. Comparisons to Citation particularly annoyed Arcaro,
who had ridden Citation to his greatest triumphs and believed the Calumet star was a horse without peer.

Out of loyalty to Citation, Arcaro had subtly started taking shots at the Dancer. It had started during the previous fall,
after the Dancer had rallied to beat Arcaro and Tahitian King in the Anticipation Stakes, a tune-up for the Futurity. Guerin
told reporters the Dancer was “just playing” when he trailed and a victory had always been assured. Irritated, Arcaro lashed
out at Guerin after the Futurity, in which Tahitian King came close to pulling off the upset.

“You’re not going to tell me your horse was ‘just playing’ this time, are you?” Arcaro snapped within earshot of reporters.

“Oh, no, that’s a real good colt you were on, Eddie,” replied Guerin, embarrassed at having to defend himself when he had
just been trying to compliment the Dancer after the Anticipation.

Arcaro was no fool. He knew the Dancer was special. But he felt it was too soon to shower such praise on a colt who had never
raced outside of New York and, in his opinion, had merely defeated the same inferior East Coast competition over and over,
mostly in races lacking early pace. The Master had serious doubts about how the Grey Ghost would respond in the Derby when
confronted for the first time with speedy front-runners such as Correspondent.

For now, though, he would wear Vanderbilt’s silks in the Wood Memorial, temporarily teamed with Guerin and the Dancer. His
chances of success were slim. Social Outcast was a Maryland-bred chestnut who had romped with the Dancer as a youngster at
Sagamore Farm and, like the Dancer, was a grandson of Discovery, but the comparisons stopped there. Social Outcast had earned
just $29,100 as a two-year-old, winning only maiden and allowance races, and had yet to win in six starts as a three-year-old.
But he had finished second in the Remsen Handicap as a two-year-old and recently run well behind Royal Bay Gem in the Chesapeake
Stakes, losing a three-way photo finish for second. He was improving.

Conspiracy theorists believed that Winfrey and Vanderbilt were running Social Outcast in the Wood and bringing in Arcaro just
to ensure a faster early pace and prep the Dancer for the Derby. In reality, Social Outcast wasn’t comfortable as a front-runner,
preferring to come from off the pace, like the Dancer. Winfrey and Vanderbilt were running him because they were still trying
to gauge his Derby potential.

The Wood had been run at Jamaica since 1925, evolving into the East’s top race for likely Derby contenders. Five horses other
than the Dancer and Social Outcast were entered this year, with the race billed as the richest for three-year-olds ever run
in New York, its purse totaling $123,750. It was certain to provide a better test for the Dancer than the Gotham, even though
Laffango was out Invigorator and Tahitian King were in, as was a long shot named Jamie K.

In the week between the Gotham and the Wood, run on successive Saturdays, the Dancer worked once, on Tuesday, covering a half
mile on Belmont’s training track and then a mile in 1:402/5, with the last quarter in twenty-seven seconds, on the main track.
It was an average work, and by Friday, according to Evan Shipman’s column in the
Morning Telegraph
, many Belmont horsemen were expecting the Grey Ghost to lose for the first time the next day.