Native Dancer (25 page)

A half century later, Shoemaker, who witnessed the incident, scoffed at the description of Popara’s actions as “race riding”—a
jockeys’ term for doing what came naturally to try to win. “I suppose he thought he was race riding, but they shouldn’t allow
that sort of thing to go on. They don’t today,” Shoemaker said. “Popara didn’t finish anywhere, but he caused a great horse
that shouldn’t have lost to get beat. If that was his idea of glory, that’s too bad.”

Popara vehemently denied the charge, telling the
Courier-Journal’s
Jerry McNerney several days after the race that “there was nothing intentional about the bumping.” The jockey was holed up
at a trailer park in Louisville, sitting out the ten-day suspension Churchill’s stew-

ards had handed him before the Derby. “I’m sorry Guerin feels the way he does,” Popara said, “and I know how Guerin and Mr.
Vanderbilt feel, losing the Derby by a head. I hated to see a great horse get beat.”

He gave McNerney his version of what happened as he tried to pass the Dancer on the first turn. “I thought we were clear of
him, but Money Broker suddenly changed stride and we bumped into him and I heard Guerin yell,” he said. “It’s entirely possible
the bumping kept him from winning. But you know, when you have a string of wins, racing luck is bound to catch up with you.”

Popara would live another forty-nine years, denying every day that he intentionally bumped the Dancer. In an interview with
Bolus in 1978, he even denied bumping the favorite at all, saying he really just cut off the Dancer and forced Guerin to check
the horse and take him outside. Guerin had unwittingly come close to confirming that version of the incident years earlier,
when he told the United Press, “When Popara came in, he pushed me on the heels of the horses in front of me, which could have
caused a terrible accident.”

Whatever really happened, it was beyond the claws of review—aside from the absence of film patrol footage, no newsreel or
TV camera had produced a clear-eyed view—and Churchill’s stewards took no action against Popara, whom they had already sanctioned.
“Everyone who saw the race is entitled to his or her opinion,” said presiding steward Sam McMeekin, who otherwise refused
comment.

The most infamous bump in Derby history eventually took on a life of its own, swelling to mythological proportions and stirring
an unceasing debate. New York newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin wrote years later that the Dancer “was nearly knocked down”
and that “nobody who saw the race believes it was accidental.” Bolus interviewed Vanderbilt in 1978 and reported that the
owner said “a blind man could see” that the bump cost the Dancer the race. Annoyed by these depictions, which he saw as inaccurate,
Louisville Times
sports editor Dean Eagle wrote in a responding column that, in fact, the bump was “mild,” few in the crowd saw it, and no
one believed it was intentional. A consensus opinion still hadn’t formed a half century after the race, and likely never would.
“Louis [Cheri] just told me that everyone was on their feet, and there was a gasp because they knew something happened, but
no one could say precisely what,” Alfred Vanderbilt III said.

Did it cost the Dancer the race? Again, there is no consensus opinion. The Grey Ghost was certainly thrown off stride and
pushed closer to the rear than Guerin wanted. “I saw it as it happened, and there was no doubt, he was impeded; Money Broker
did him pretty good,” Joe Tannenbaum said fifty years later. Yet there was still almost a mile left in the race, and the Dancer
rallied to within two lengths of the lead by the top of the stretch, so there was time to win. “The bump was a long way from
home,” Allen Jerkens said. “Things like that happen in the Derby every year—even worse.”

There is more of a consensus regarding the bump’s effect on Guerin, who made several debatable decisions in its wake. “It
probably shook Guerin up more than the horse,” Vanderbilt told Bolus in 1978. Indeed, numerous criticisms of the jockey’s
performance slowly rose to the surface over time, with various rivals and observers second-guessing him for (a) holding the
Dancer back in the first quarter mile, (b) asking for trouble on the first turn by getting caught in a pack, (c) racing up
the backstretch too hurriedly, leaving little gas in the Dancer’s tank for the homestretch, (d) moving down to the rail, from
where the Dancer seldom charged, on the second turn, (e) holding the Dancer back yet again at the top of the stretch, postponing
his final charge until it was too late, (f) getting caught behind Dark Star in the stretch, forcing him to move off the rail
as he rallied, and (g) in general, giving the colt a ride consisting of so many stops and starts and ins and outs that, as
one steward reportedly later said, “He took that horse everywhere on the track but to the ladies’ room.”

Ralph Kercheval told Bill Christine of the
Los Angeles Times
in 1989 that Guerin “panicked” after the bump. Moreno, the winning jockey, told the Knight-Ridder News Service in 1982 that
Guerin “had to ease the horse up four or five different times—that was his mistake. Horses have only so many runs in them,
but Guerin rode him like ‘I can do anything I want.’ ”

Vanderbilt died in 1997 without addressing the issue publicly, but Alfred Vanderbilt III said, “I asked my father straight
up about the ride one time, and he said it probably wasn’t the best ride Eric Guerin ever gave him. But that was as far as
he’d ever go. He didn’t say it was a bad ride. He just said, ‘It probably wasn’t the best ride he’d ever given [the horse].’
Which was very fair.”

Bill Winfrey also never addressed the issue publicly, but his son Carey said years later, “My father once said to me that
he felt that Native Dancer probably raced thirty or forty yards farther than any other horse in the race, which was a huge
number of yards. He never said it publicly. He also admitted to me that he felt Eric moved too late in the stretch. He didn’t
know why he hung back. He felt that there was bad racing luck involved, that Eric gave him a bad ride and that’s why he didn’t
win.”

Years later, Guerin’s own first cousin Charles Ray Leblanc was critical of Guerin’s ride. “I might not oughta say this, but
it was my opinion Eric rode a bad race,” Leblanc said. “There were some bad judgments he made; some of the few bad judgments
he made in his career. He kept trying to take the horse back in the beginning and wound up getting in trouble. He should have
just let the horse run. Then when he got in trouble, I think it riled him a little bit. It’s just my opinion, but he never
should have got beat.”

Tannenbaum said years later, “Guerin was one of the finest riders of his day, but everyone in any sport has temporary lapses.
No matter how much of a pro Guerin was, and he was the consummate pro, it was still the Derby. He may have been tense. Instead
of taking the horse to the outside on the second turn, he went to the rail to save ground. Maybe he was trying to save the
horse after that furious run up the backside, but he should have gone to the outside and let the horse run, as he’d done in
his other races.”

Jerkens took a kinder view, focusing only on Guerin’s failure to gain ground in the first half of the stretch, and dismissing
his delayed rally as understandable. “Guerin was such a good rider and had so much confidence in the horse that he knew he
could make up two lengths in a quarter mile,” Jerkens said. “He had won a lot of races from a lot farther back than he was.
It was incredible that he didn’t make up those two lengths. What happened was the other horse kept going, and they just missed.
This happens in racing.”

Strangely, there was little discussion of any of this immediately after the race. In the jockeys’ room, Guerin spoke mostly
about the bump and told reporters the Dancer wasn’t himself. “He wasn’t running as well in the stretch as he was in his New
York races; it may have been that he didn’t like the track,” the jockey said. Arthur Daley wrote that the jockey “bore a stunned
and disbelieving look” and “was on his way home for a good cry.” But Daley’s postmortem column also offered unattributed second-guessing
from a “veteran horseman” questioning Guerin for holding the Dancer back in the beginning. There was “talk,” Daley wrote,
“that Guerin had given the horse a slightly less than perfect ride.” Things worsened from there.

Guerin would ride for another two decades, retiring after a thirty-five-year career that included 20,131 mounts, 2,712 wins,
and election to the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame. But “because people never forget a mistake,” he said years later,
he was remembered mostly for losing the Derby. “Anytime anyone interviews me, it’s the first question they ask: ‘What happened
in the Derby?’ ” he told the
Daily Racing Form
in 1975. He handled the criticism with class, never publicly lashing back, although he did tell the
Form
he “got a little tired of hearing about it.” When he went into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 1992, he chose Popara,
of all people, to introduce him at the ceremony. Guerin had long ago patched up his differences with Money Broker’s jockey,
who had settled in New Orleans. “They were best buddies, sitting there joking at the induction ceremony; it was water under
the bridge,” said Guerin’s nephew, Frank Curry, who traveled with Guerin to the ceremony.

But though he was able to joke about it, Guerin never consented to the notion that his ride had cost the Dancer the Derby.
He remained true to his original assessment, offered immediately after the race, that the Grey Ghost wasn’t himself that day.
“If he had been running his race in the first part of it, he wouldn’t have been that far back; Money Broker should never have
been in front of him,” he told Jim Bolus in 1968. Later that year, he told Peter Finney of the
New Orleans Times
that the colt’s pre-Derby training affected him adversely in the race, that he was sluggish in the early going because he
had been forced to run far behind Social Outcast in their one-mile “trial” three days before the race. “He never loafed out
of the gate like he did in the Derby; I couldn’t get him going,” Guerin said. “He was just doing the same thing he had done
in that trial.”

Attempts to blame a horse often sit poorly with horsemen. “Eric was not too kind after the race,” Dan W. Scott said. “Every
jock wants to assume it’s someone else’s fault or the horse’s fault or he got bumped or some other jock did wrong. He said
Native Dancer just wasn’t himself that day. But Native Dancer was practically running over horses in the last quarter. Bill
Winfrey said he had never seen a horse close that much ground as fast as he did.”

History has generally dismissed Guerin’s notion that the Dancer lost because he “wasn’t himself.” To the contrary, many believe
the Dancer’s greatness was, in fact, indelibly confirmed that day. His furious finish certainly laid to rest the idea—much
discussed to that point—that he would have trouble racing at longer distances because Polynesian was his sire. Given the obstacles
he faced, his near victory was quite a performance. Asked years later by the
Blood-Horse
to name the horse’s best races, Winfrey put the Derby on the list. “Only a superhorse could have finished with the drive
that he did after the trip that he had,” Tannenbaum said.

“Native Dancer ran magnificently,” Evan Shipman wrote in a
Morning Telegraph
column several days after the race. “Never during the two seasons that Vanderbilt’s great grey has charmed and impressed
the racing public has he run better, or as well. Don’t let his defeat blind you to his true accomplishment, because it was
remarkable, disposing once and for all the legend that he could not ‘go a distance,’ and attesting, as never before, to his
admirable speed and courage.”

Yet in Guerin’s defense, there is also evidence supporting the idea that the horse wasn’t at his best. Winfrey said in a 1989
interview with racing journalist Eva Jolene Boyd that he felt he didn’t have the Dancer ready for the Derby, and while Carey
Winfrey wonders whether his father should be believed—according to Carey, his father had suffered a series of mini-strokes,
possibly clouding his memory—it is possible the Dancer wasn’t in peak condition.

The other ten horses in the race had made between four and ten starts in 1953 before the Derby, but the Dancer had only raced
twice, his season set back by the firing of his ankles. One of his races had been canceled and replaced by a trial, and his
last workout before the Derby had also been replaced by a trial. In addition, he had apparently gotten knocked around when
his train lurched to a halt on the way to Louisville, and according to Harthill, was treated with electrolytes passed through
a stomach tube during Derby week. Weighing all these factors in hindsight is impossible, but the fact that the Dancer’s form
improved dramatically as the 1953 season progressed suggests that, as impressive as he was in the Derby, he might have fared
better with more seasoning. Winfrey was a master, and the Dancer was in shape to run that day, but maybe he wasn’t in peak
shape.

“My own opinion, I think he had a little ankle trouble that day,” Jerkens said. “His ankles had been fired and I think the
track stung him. He might not have been at his very best that day.”

Alfred Vanderbilt III said, “After a number of years of thinking about it, I think my father believed that a number of factors
were responsible for the defeat, aside from the ride and Money Broker laying for him. I think he felt that the stars were
just in the wrong constellation, that the horse wasn’t quite as ready as he could have been, that he didn’t run as well as
he might have run, and it was all those things.”

No one mistakes what happened. “The best horse got beat,” Moreno, the winning jockey, told Bolus in 1978. But the best horse
that day? Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t the favorite. Lost in the tumultuous debate about Money Broker, the bump, and Guerin’s
ride was the fact that the winner raced brilliantly and Moreno rode him superbly; that no matter why or how the Dancer was
done in, Harry Guggenheim’s unknown, underdog colt deserved to win.