Sport: Superlative Colt

At New York’s Jamaica race track last week, even the hardbitten pros felt a twinge of excitement as a powerful, dark grey colt named Native Dancer went to the post—at a champion’s odds of 1 to 5. Unbeaten in eight starts, at distances up to 6½ furlongs, the two-year-old Dancer had to answer one more question: Could he go a distance? In the East View Stakes, at a mile-and-a-sixteenth, he answered the question.

A Warning Wave. Down the backstretch, Native Dancer was an unimpressive fourth, seven lengths behind Laffango, winner of the one-mile Champagne Stakes. At the far turn, Jockey Eric Guerin asked the big (1,150 Ibs.) grey colt for action. As usual, the Dancer responded with a surge of power, and by midstretch he had put away the leaders. Although the colt likes to loaf once he gets in front, a» warning wave of Jockey Guerin’s bat sent him winging under the wire in an excellent 1:44⅓The victory, worth $38,525, boosted Native Dancer’s earnings to $230,495, and made him the money-winningest two-year-old of all time (the previous record: $219,000, won back in 1931 by the unbeaten filly Top Flight). Even more satisfying to Owner Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt was the prospect ahead; for Native Dancer is the obvious early choice for next year’s Kentucky Derby (a race Vanderbilt has never won) and the Triple Crown.

A Wide Swath. Native Dancer’s easy, businesslike victory earned him a rest. Trainer Bill Winfrey, who has no intention of letting the horse out of sight, will take him to California with the racing stable, put him back in training in December after a precautionary ankle-“blistering” (i.e., tightening). Next race: Jamaica in April. “Anything more this season would be superfluous,” explained Winfrey. “He’s done all we could ask of him—answered all the questions we had.”

The superlative son of Polynesian (leading money-winning sire of two-year-olds this season) is the second foal of Geisha (a fair-to-middling Vanderbilt mare by the great Discovery). “He doesn’t have a nerve in his body, or a drop of temperament,” according to Trainer Winfrey. This is one explanation of the Dancer’s greatness. Another, Winfrey suspects, is inside the colt’s deep chest: “Those lungs may be his greatest asset. At the end of a race he never shows the slightest sign of being winded or tired.” Winfrey likens Native Dancer’s staying power to that of Henry Armstrong, the triple-crown champion-who cut as wide a swath in boxing as Native Dancer seems capable of doing in racing.

-Winner of the world’s featherweight, welterweight and lightweight titles in 1937-38.