Word: belmonte
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...stable area of New York's elegant Belmont Park?Stall No. 6, Barn No. 20?lives a champion who at the age of four already seems destined to be the hero of such a legend. He is a big, muscular, aristocratic racing colt who stands 16.2 hands (5 ft. 6 in.) high and weighs an above-average 1,200 Ibs. His name: Native Dancer...
Last week, about 700,000 Americans went to the races. In 1953 the turnout was 30 million in all. Around the calendar, rain or shine, there were 107 thoroughbred race tracks to go to?such huge showplace parks as Belmont. Hialeah and Santa Anita; such tradition-misted places as Kentucky's Churchill Downs, Maryland's Pimlico or upstate New York's Saratoga; such concrete-and-asphalt betting receptacles as New York's Jamaica and Aqueduct; dozens of obscure little tracks that horsemen call "bull rings." There were 50,000 registered thoroughbreds, at least half of them in racing training...
...rest of the three-year-old season, the Dancer saw to it that the halt en route was not omitted. He took the other bright gemstones of the Triple Crown, the Preakness at a mile and three-sixteenths and the Belmont at a mile and a half, and just about every other three-year-old prize worth having east of the Mississippi. It proved that in addition to speed, the Dancer had stamina; the greater the distance, the better he seemed to go. But in September 1953 Trainer Winfrey detected some soreness in the Dancer's left forefoot...
...triple crown, the great grey put on three breathtaking finishing sprints that would have done credit to "Snapper" Garrison, the jockey who became immortal for his come-from-behind finishes. The Dancer lost the Kentucky Derby by a head, won the Preakness by a neck, won the Belmont by an even shorter neck. Last week the Dancer, now a full-grown four-year-old, was back again, this time going after racing's triple handicap crown (the Metropolitan, Suburban and Brooklyn). In his first handicap race, carrying a top impost of 130 Ibs., the Dancer proved once again...
Millions of TV fans and some 40,000 racegoers at New York's Belmont Park (who backed the Dancer down to 1-4) gasped as the field rounded the turn at the head of the stretch. With only a quarter of a mile of the mile-long race to go, the Dancer was fifth, a full seven lengths behind front-running Straight Face. At that point Jockey Eric Guerin gave the Dancer four sharp raps with his whip...