Native Dancer (22 page)

There were gasps and cheers when the two Vanderbilt horses appeared on the track hours later, after the third race. Bernie
Everson was riding the Dancer, and Willie Nertney, a former jockey who now exercised horses for Vanderbilt, was aboard Social
Outcast. Winfrey’s plan was for the two to cover a mile, with Social Outcast breaking in front early to give the Dancer a
target to shoot for down the stretch.

Unlike the botched trial before the Gotham, this went smoothly.

The horses broke to a start from under the finish line, and as planned, Nertney and Social Outcast jumped in front by five
lengths. They increased the margin to eight lengths in the backstretch, with Everson keeping a tight hold on the Dancer. When
Everson finally asked him to run as they turned for home, the Grey Ghost put on a show. Picking up steam, he closed to within
five lengths of Social Outcast, then four, then two. He was within a head as they crossed the finish line, and although Social
Outcast was in front, the Dancer’s devastating finishing kick had the crowd buzzing. Clockers timed him over the final quarter
mile in 23⅕ seconds—almost a second faster than any winning horse had ever run the final quarter mile of the Derby. That more
than made up for the relatively slow overall clocking of 1:393/5 for a mile.

As he watched the horses cool out back at the barn minutes later, Winfrey said he was pleased. “I would have preferred that
he run a faster first half and a slower second half, but I’m not kicking,” the trainer said. “He’s ready to run Saturday.”

The crowd watched five more races, but left talking about the Dancer’s remarkable stretch run. It was instant Derby lore.
More than 100,000 fans and a TV audience in the millions would see the horse’s expected coronation in the Derby in a couple
of days, but those who had seen him run down Social Outcast that afternoon had been given a private exhibition of his greatness.
How lucky they felt.

The field was finalized Friday morning when the owners of a dozen horses paid the $250 to enter. The last horse entered was
Dark Star, Eddie Hayward arriving with Guggenheim’s money just twenty-one minutes before the entry period closed. Post positions
were drawn in Churchill racing secretary Lincoln Plaut’s office. Plaut placed twelve numbered pellets in a container and withdrew
them one at a time. The Dancer drew the seventh post, in the middle of the starting gate. That pleased Winfrey and Vanderbilt.

The field was easily separated into three distinct groups. The Dancer and Correspondent were at one end, the favorites, and
five long shots—Spy Defense, Social Outcast, Ace Destroyer, Ram o’ War, and Curragh King—were at the other end, seemingly
overmatched. In between were five horses with legitimate Derby credentials. Royal Bay Gem figured to be the third betting
choice, followed by Straight Face and Dark Star. Money Broker had finished in the money in all but one of his eight starts
as a three-year-old. Invigorator was always competitive.

But the Grey Ghost loomed mightily over them all, his record, reputation, and physical presence convincing many on-the-scene
observers that this Derby was a constellation with but one star. In a
Courier-Journal
poll printed on Friday, forty-one of sixty-seven journalists picked him to win. Support for the others was minimal, with
ten backing Royal Bay Gem, nine taking Correspondent, three picking Straight Face, two taking Social Outcast, one taking Spy
Defense, and one taking Dark Star.

The Dancer’s hype and popularity were becoming too widespread for some horsemen, most notably Arcaro. Hours after the poll
appeared in print, the Master gave scalding answers to several questions from Associated Press reporter Kyle Vance, complaining
that Churchill’s racing strip was “full of holes” and “the worst possible track” and that Native Dancer was overrated. “He
had better be a hell of a horse,” Arcaro told Vance in a story that moved on the national wires. “He hasn’t proved he is yet.
It isn’t fair, the way they’re building him up. It isn’t fair to the horse and it isn’t fair to the jockey.”

There were other dissenters. Rip Newborn of the
Cleveland Press
, the one writer who had picked Dark Star in the
Courier-Journal
poll, explained in an accompanying article that he wasn’t supporting the Dancer because “Polynesian has to show me he can
beget a top stayer.” In other words, because the Dancer’s sire had raced most effectively at shorter distances, Newborn was
unsure whether his grey son could race the mile-and-a-quarter Derby distance without tiring. It was a criticism that had dogged
the Dancer, and now, on the eve of the Derby, it was one of several arguments his few critics were using to pick against him.
A grey had never won the Derby. And only fifteen of the twenty-six odds-on Derby favorites had won.

As much as it seemed unlikely that the Dancer would lose, history suggested that, at the very least, the possibility existed.
Thirteen years earlier, a magnificent colt named Bimelech had come to the Derby in circumstances similar to the Dancer’s.
Owned by E. R. Bradley, already a winner of four Derbys, the colt was 11-0 and had been saluted by Bradley, one of Vanderbilt’s
racing mentors, as “my finest horse.” Bet down to the shortest price in Derby history, forty cents on the dollar, Bimelech
raced near the front, took the lead on the second turn, and held it driving for home, only to have a 35-1 shot named Gallahadion
overtake him in the final furlong. Remembering the upset thirteen years later,
Courier-Journal
assistant sports editor Dean Eagle wrote a column headlined, “Don’t Hock Your Car to Back Native Dancer! Remember Bimelech?”

On the other hand, two other favorites since Bimelech had run in the Derby at odds of forty cents on the dollar, and both—Count
Fleet in 1943 and Citation in 1948—had won. The Dancer would draw similar support. Anyone who knew racing understood that
any number of problems could arise in any race to keep the best horse from winning, but the Dancer, many believed, was so
plainly superior that, like Count Fleet and Citation, he would sail past any obstacles on his way to the winner’s circle.

During training hours on Friday, Vanderbilt was standing along the rail watching the Dancer jog by when Clyde Troutt, trainer
of Royal Bay Gem, happened by on a pony. After waiting until the Dancer passed, Troutt leaned over and congratulated Vanderbilt.

“He’s just a splendid horse, sir,” the trainer said. “I’ve got a game one myself, but I can’t beat you.”

Vanderbilt smiled. The week had been a swirl for him from the moment he arrived, his many friends in racing wanting to help
him celebrate the triumph of the Dancer’s greatness. Louis Cheri, his valet, was with him—Louis had become a racing expert
himself and wouldn’t have missed the Derby—and Jeanne had joined them later in the week. Vanderbilt had a cold he jokingly
attributed to “rose fever”—“If Native Dancer runs as fast as my nose, we’re in,” he said—but it didn’t stop him from making
his rounds. Every day he rose early and went to Churchill to watch the Dancer train and to soak up the scene, drinking coffee
and giving interviews as the tension built. Other obligations occasionally distracted him—a society hostess gave a luncheon
in his honor one afternoon—but he was increasingly fixated on the real reason for his trip, the momentous occasion for which
he had waited so long: his chance to win the Derby.

He and Jeanne were staying at the home of Baylor Hickman, a wealthy Louisville horseman and businessman who had once served
on the Kentucky Racing Commission. Hickman lived at Glenview, a magnificent acreage located up the river from downtown Louisville.
“There were a lot of people around and they were having quite a time out there; lots of parties and lots of corks being popped,”
recalled Dr. Harthill, who was dating and later married Hickman’s daughter, and attended many of the parties that week. “They
were celebrating. Everyone thought the Dancer was going to win. It was like it was a foregone conclusion.”

T
he sun shone on the Dancer’s Derby. The weather forecasters had called for storms and a sloppy track, but Saturday dawned
clear and bright, with temperatures headed for the seventies, no ominous clouds in the distance, and a fast track assured.
An existential handicapper might have suggested that the racing gods wanted the Grey Ghost illuminated in the ultimate spotlight
on his most important day.

The colt had gobbled down four quarts of oats at 1
A.M
. and slept in the straw until dawn, when Lester Murray brushed him and put fresh bandages on his legs. Bernie Everson took
him to the track for a jog after Winfrey, Vanderbilt, and Kercheval arrived. Everson was wearing a cerise and white sweater
over a cerise sports shirt with cerise diamonds on white sleeves—no doubt as to whom he worked for. The Dancer cantered up
the backstretch and around the turn, accelerated for a quarter mile, then eased up at the finish line and jogged all the way
around the track again. Just stretching his legs. Ever curious, he breezed with his head cocked at a detachment of National
Guardsmen mustering in the infield.

Red Smith, the columnist for the
New York Herald Tribune
, was spending the morning at the barn, recording a minute-by-minute account of the Dancer’s day, as if it were destined to
become racing history. According to the column, which ran the next day, Everson was on the shank as the horse cooled out,
circling the barn with two blankets over him at first, then one. “Don’t let’s walk all the speed out of him,” Winfrey said
after twenty minutes. The horse was put back in his stall, which was freshly laid with new straw. Murray tied his tail up,
removed his bandages, and rubbed him down, and he snoozed upright—“like Joe Louis sleeping in the dressing room before a fight,”
Smith wrote—before eating two more quarts of oats and snoozing again.

Someone brought in a copy of Saturday’s edition of the
Morning Telegraph
, which included long profiles of Winfrey and Vanderbilt. Winfrey glanced at the story, which noted that he had already been
a trainer for twenty-one years even though he was just turning thirty-seven. “Why, I just started shaving,” he told Smith.
His father, George Carey Winfrey, who had taught him so much, was back in New York, putting his horses through their morning
works at Jamaica. The elder Winfrey had never run a horse in the Derby, so when a reporter asked Bill Winfrey if the hullabaloo
of the past week had aged him, he knew better than to sound a jaded note. “Far from it; this is what I’ve waited for for 37
years,” Winfrey said.

Churchill Downs’s gates had opened at 8 A.M., and a great crowd was steadily building. The backside was overrun with grooms,
fans, horsemen, reporters, and children, and a steady stream of visitors dropped by Barn 16 to offer best wishes. One, Smith
wrote, was a man who had served in the South Pacific with Winfrey during World War II. Another was a newsreel photographer
who shot film of the owner and trainer laughing and smiling. “Do you want long faces, too, in case we lose?” Vanderbilt asked.
Vanderbilt and Kercheval left at 9:30, just before Johnny Adams, the veteran jockey who would ride Social Outcast in the Derby,
came by to discuss tactics with Winfrey. The trainer left shortly after that.

Tension slowly built as the hours passed. According to Smith’s column, Everson’s wife came by with her husband’s lucky socks—cerise
with white diamonds, of course—which he had worn each time the Dancer raced, and Murray and Harold Walker cleaned the barn
and ate lunch in a stall. The blare of the track announcer and occasional roars from the crowd interrupted the reverie. Winfrey
returned with his wife Elaine, who was pregnant, and showed her around the barn before taking her over to the grandstand to
get her settled in Vanderbilt’s box. A young boy leaning against a fence stopped them on their walk and offered Elaine a tip
on the race. “Dark Star’s gonna win,” the boy said. The tip was ignored.

Word arrived that Spy Defense, one of the longest shots in the Derby field, had scratched, with trainer Jack Hodgins offering
this explanation to reporters: “I’ve got a good reputation, and I’m not going up against the grey one. Native Dancer is a
champion, and you don’t see many champions, so why don’t we just admit it?”

The nine-race card started at noon in weather so pleasant “many of the male customers put aside their coats and rolled up
their shirtsleeves,” wrote James Roach in the
New York Times
, and “those who were in the infield were able to get a full day of sun-tanning that was at least a reasonable facsimile of
the Miami Beach type.” It was a classic Derby crowd, a convivial blend of fashionable women and powerful men. They drank mint
juleps, studied the
Racing Form
, bet, and bought souvenirs including fringed pillow covers, bugles, parasols, and julep glasses.

Churchill president Bill Corum had hoped Judy Garland and Bob Hope would lead the list of celebrities in attendance, but Garland
had become ill after a concert the night before, and Hope had gone to Washington after attending the races on Friday. The
list of faces-to-be-seen was still long and impressive, including U.S. senator Lyndon Johnson of Texas and a half dozen of
his colleagues; four governors; FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover; former vice president Alben Barkley; actor Charles Coburn, singer
Marilyn Maxwell, and Happy Chandler, the former baseball commissioner and governor of Kentucky. The Derby did bring out the
heavyweights.