Native Dancer (32 page)

“You got a new boy and you ain’t gonna like this,” Murray mumbled as he settled the horse in the stall after the long trip.

Years later, Mary Appley, the wife of Claude, recalled, “Lester was extremely upset about Arcaro coming on. Lester knew what
Geurin could do. It was like letting your kid go with a different baby sitter. Lester very much related to the horse that
way, like a child. He treated the horse like a diamond ring and he didn’t want anything to change. He said to me, ‘I don’t
know, Miss Mary. I don’t know about this new boy’ Eddie Arcaro was a ‘boy.’ ”

The public’s reaction to Arcaro’s hiring was predictable. Telegrams, letters, and phone calls poured in from fans urging Vanderbilt
and Winfrey to change their minds and choose any jockey other than the Dancer’s most vocal critic. The owner and trainer weren’t
swayed. They had the man they wanted. After Everson jogged the Dancer on Wednesday morning, Winfrey scheduled a serious workout
for Thursday morning with Arcaro up. The jockey and horse needed to get acquainted.

Never, perhaps, had a routine workout attracted so much attention. Reporters swarmed the Dancer’s barn at dawn, spoke to Winfrey
and Murray, and waited for Arcaro, who soon arrived wearing khakis and a dark polo shirt. Winfrey gave the Master a leg up
and asked him to cover five furlongs in 1:05—an easy pace. Under a bright sun, Washington Park came to a standstill when Arcaro
and the Dancer made their move, much as Saratoga had frozen during the Dancer’s work before the Travers a week earlier. Marshall
Smith later reported in
Life
that the racing secretary’s office emptied, exercise riders stopped to watch, and “the backstretch was lined solid for almost
a quarter mile with racetrack people.”

Arcaro covered the five furlongs in exactly 1:05, proving that the old-timers might be right when they said he had a stopwatch
in his head. Reporters surrounded Arcaro afterward, but the Master downplayed the significance of his first ride on the Grey
Ghost. “It was just a workout, and actually, I just sat there and he moved along; I think Mr. Winfrey was breezing the jockey
more than the horse,” he said.

The Master fielded numerous questions about all aspects of his pending ride. How did the Dancer compare to Citation? “Come
on, all I have done is work him out once,” the jockey said. Why had he been so critical of Vanderbilt’s horse? “He was a great
horse all along; all I meant was he would have to show me he was the greatest before I rated him that way,” Arcaro said. “Now
I’m on the spot where I hope he does show me—it’s money out of my pocket if he doesn’t.”

The loss of money wouldn’t mean nearly as much as the blow to his reputation, of course. If he failed to win after Guerin
had guided the Dancer to seventeen wins in eighteen starts, it would be “a terrible blot on Eddie’s record,” the
Chicago Tribune’s
Maurice Shevlin wrote. The pressure was getting to Arcaro by Friday night. “I wanted to ride this horse a couple of days
ago, but now I’m not so sure,” he told Marshall Smith
of Life
.

It was unlike Arcaro to doubt himself, but there was a mitigating circumstance: the jockey was injured, having wrenched his
ankle in a fall and then watched it swell to the point that he had to cut a hole in his boot to relieve the pressure and continue
to ride. Arcaro hadn’t spoken publicly about the injury, and few outside of his inner circle knew, but
Morning Telegraph
reporter J. J. Murphy broke the story a day before the American Derby. “Eddie has put a blackout on information regarding
the injury, but we feel the story should be told,” Murphy wrote. “He’s been undergoing day-long and night-long treatments,
with considerable pain involved, to keep the swelling down. There hasn’t been a moment between races in the past week that
his valet hasn’t wrapped the ankle in hot packs with cellophane covering, and given it massages.”

Arcaro canceled all of his mounts on Friday to rest the ankle, but the pain was still so severe on Saturday morning that he
asked to have the ankle X-rayed, according to the
New York Times
. Presumably, he would have pulled out of the race if the X rays had revealed a broken bone. He kept the mount but was obviously
still in pain. Years later, Carey Winfrey recalled Arcaro taking a shot of novocaine before the race. “I vividly remember
Eddie being very worried about riding with no feeling in his leg,” Carey recalled.

Bernie Everson took the Dancer out for a brief jog on the morning of the race, then brought him back to the barn and turned
him over to Murray. The groom was palpably nervous about the challenge the horse would confront later that day.

“You know it’s different this time, don’t you,” the groom said as he wrapped stall bandages on the Dancer’s legs for the horse
to wear until post.

Murray’s concerns were well founded. Though the Dancer was as predictable as the sunrise in some ways, never failing to turn
on his motor in the stretch for a winning run to the finish line, he was also occasionally distrustful of strangers and, like
many horses, wary of changes in his routine. As Murray saw it, the change from Guerin to Arcaro wasn’t to be dismissed; eighteen
races with the same jockey had established a routine in the horse’s mind, and there was no telling how a horse as headstrong
and intelligent as the Dancer would respond.

“You gonna be okay, Daddy,” the groom said as he worked in the stall, using a nickname he had pinned on the Dancer in the
spring after the Vanderbilt barn cat named Mom had delivered her litter of grey kittens. But Murray’s voice lacked its usual
conviction.

The American Derby had a long and glorious history. It had been one of America’s most important races late in the nineteenth
century, more prestigious than the Kentucky Derby. E. J. “Lucky” Baldwin, the famed California pioneer and horse owner, had
supposedly once said he would rather win the American Derby than become governor of California. (He won it twice with Isaac
Murphy, the legendary African American jockey.) The Triple Crown events had surpassed it and all other three-year-old races
in importance, and other second-tier events such as the Arlington Classic had larger purses,

but it was still the culmination of the summer racing season in Chicago. Whirlaway and Citation were among the race’s recent
winners.

Vanderbilt had entered a horse in the American Derby only once before, finishing second with Discovery, behind Cavalcade,
in 1934. Although he now had the favorite, his horse’s path to the winner’s circle appeared anything but easy once the field
and weights were set. The Dancer would carry 128 pounds, more than any American Derby winner had carried. The seven horses
opposing him in the one-and-an-eighth-mile race would carry from eight to fourteen fewer pounds. Sir Mango, second behind
the Dancer in the Arlington Classic and winner of the prep race in which Jamie K. had faltered five days earlier, would carry
114. “He is ready for the race of his life,” Sir Mango’s owner, Harry Eads, said. A stakes-winning English gelding named Stan,
making his dirt track debut after a career on grass, would carry 117. Landlocked, recent winner of two stakes races in New
Jersey, would race closest to the Dancer at 120 pounds. Van Crosby, at 114, was expected to set the early pace, and a second
Vanderbilt colt, Beachcomber, would also run at 114, coupled with the Dancer as a betting entity.

The Grey Ghost was the class of the field, but the weight differentials and the ballyhoo over the jockey change produced an
air of uncertainty all day Saturday. The third-largest crowd in Washington Park history gathered in a broiling haze. The fans
were there not only to bet on the Dancer, who was sent to the post at 1–5 odds, but also to see for themselves how Arcaro
handled one of his most devilish assignments.

As expected, hundreds gathered around the paddock and let the Master have it when he appeared in Vanderbilt’s cerise and white
silks, last worn by Arcaro when he rode Social Outcast in the Wood Memorial. The fans booed him, hurled invectives, stood
on the rail and shouted that he had damn well better win. Arcaro’s expression was grim. These were circumstances as harrowing
as any he had experienced, quite a statement for a jockey who had started 16,274 races over twenty-two years and won 3,214.
None of that mattered now. If he didn’t win, he would never hear the end of it.

The horses were sent to the post at 4:59
P.M.
, with the Dancer in the no. 4 stall. He broke cleanly and dropped off the lead as Sir Mango, with a local jockey named Dave
Erb riding, zoomed to the front from the far outside post as the pack headed for the first turn. Arcaro planned to follow
Guerin’s usual strategy: race close to the front, but in the shadow of the leaders, until the second turn, then let the Dancer
loose and hold on.

Whatever hopes Arcaro had of a routine, uneventful ride soon evaporated. Passing the grandstand the first time, the Dancer
refused to do what his jockey asked. It was as if he knew Arcaro had doubted him and wanted to make the jockey suffer. Arcaro
asked him to press closer to the front as they entered the first turn, but the Dancer languished near the rear, in front of
only one horse.

Arcaro shouted at the horse as they came out of the first turn and headed up the backstretch, then shook the reins to try
to convince him to run. Unmoved, the Dancer continued to lag behind, refusing to put out as he briefly slipped into last—last!—place,
ten lengths off the pace. Arcaro, becoming desperate, shook the reins again, and the Dancer finally responded with a token
effort, accelerating past a few laggards and moving into fourth on the second turn. But then he stalled again, his stride
shortening. The crowd roared. Sir Mango was two lengths ahead of the pack. The fans were beginning to envision an upset.

Later, Arcaro would admit he was worried when the Dancer stalled on the second turn; maybe the colt just wasn’t going to run
for a jockey other than Guerin. He was in fourth as he turned for home, in no way resembling the likely winner. Arcaro, who
had moved to the rail to save ground, swerved back to the middle of the track to find an open lane and running room. The leaders
were racing inside of him, with Sir Mango a head in front of Landlocked and a 27-1 shot named Precious Stone. Arcaro was in
trouble.

But then suddenly, without urging, the Dancer turned it on. Arcaro didn’t shout at him, strike him, wave the stick, or shake
the reins. The horse decided on his own to start moving, as if he had suddenly realized that time was running out. Back went
his ears, down went his head, and off he went. The leaders never had a chance.

With just a few gargantuan strides, the Grey Ghost passed Precious Stone and Landlocked and zoomed past tiring Sir Mango as
he reached the eighth pole. Suddenly, there was only dirt in front of him and cheers raining down. The Dancer pulled farther
away with every stride, taking control, leaving the others behind.

Just like that, Arcaro was saved.

Before the Belmont, when the Dancer’s greatness was still being debated, Arthur Daley had written in the
New York Times
that when great horses “came on with an invincible rush … they blasted away with a surging power that was awesome to behold.”
Here was such a rush, a champion demolishing his opponents in a matter of moments after having given them reason to believe
they could win. The Dancer powered to the finish and hit the wire two lengths ahead of Landlocked, his time just one-fifth
of a second off the track record, held by a horse who had carried ten fewer pounds.

“We could have broken that track record easily,” Arcaro told Vanderbilt after the race, referring to the Dancer’s meandering
in the early going.

The owner accepted the trophy, the
Chicago Tribune
reported, “in the manner of a New York Yankee winning a baseball game, or a Notre Dame halfback after a football victory—it
was old stuff.” The
Tribune
also noted that famed New Orleans high roller Diamond Jim Moran was in the crowd and had proclaimed the Dancer “the greatest
of ’em all,” even though he had placed a losing twenty-dollar bet on Landlocked that was “as wrong as sin.”

Lester Murray was beaming when he took the horse from the Master. The Dancer’s groom had been more nervous before this race
than the Kentucky Derby, fearing how the horse would respond to the jockey change.

“You the champ, Daddy,” Murray said into the horse’s ear. “You show these people.”

Arcaro’s relief was obvious as he smiled broadly in the winner’s circle. Despite the must-win pressure and his sore ankle,
the Master had performed brilliantly as a relief pitcher, keeping the Dancer off the early pace, saving ground along the rail,
and then finding a lane for the Dancer to uncork his finishing kick. The horse had resisted orders and acted on his own, but
everything had worked out.

What did Arcaro think now of the famous Grey Ghost? His opinions were, to some reporters, more newsworthy than the outcome
of the race. The writers crowded around Arcaro in the jockeys’ room.

“I guess Native Dancer is about everything they said he is. He had plenty left. He’s one hell of a horse,” the jockey said.
“He handled himself perfectly, but going down the backstretch he didn’t seem to be doing much. He still didn’t do much at
the half-mile pole. Then all of a sudden he started to roll, and that was it Apparently he likes to make his move when he
sees fit. But man, does he make up ground when he decides to move.”

Was he worried to find himself in fourth place turning for home? “I was worried because I didn’t know much about him,” Arcaro
said, “but he got me over that worry fast—as soon as he hit the stretch. Then he had sheer power. I never hit him, just waved
my stick a few times. I wanted to keep control because I’d been warned he might take it easy after getting into the lead.
It wasn’t necessary to strike him. When we hit the wire he was loafing along and winking at the photographers.”

How did the Dancer compare with Citation? That was the opinion everyone wanted to know, and accounts of Arcaro’s response
differed. Marshall Smith, in
Life
, wrote that Arcaro said, “The best horse I ever rode was Citation.” Neither the
Chicago Tribune
nor the
New York Times
used such a quote. The
Tribune
reported that Arcaro said, “It’s difficult to compare them. Citation was easier to ride. He responded quicker when I asked
him.” The
Times
didn’t mention the issue. Whatever he said, he obviously still favored Citation. But the Dancer had impressed him. After
publicly doubting the colt for more than a year, he never again voiced a hint of criticism.