Native Dancer
The Grey Ghost: Hero of a Golden Age
Chapter One
He was a sprinkle of light on a dark canvas, the only grey horse in a dizzy
tumble of bays, blacks, and chestnuts coming down the stretch. The 40,000 fans
crowded into Belmont Park on September 27, 1952, could easily pick him out and
see he was in trouble, trapped between and behind other horses with the finish
line fast approaching. Only days earlier, a columnist for the New York Morning
Telegraph, a newspaper that focused on horse racing, had wondered in print, "Is
Native Dancer Invincible?" With two furlongs left in the Futurity Stakes, one of
American racing's most important events for two-year-olds, the horse's aura of
invincibility was being challenged as never before.
He had reached the finish line well ahead of his rivals in his prior seven races
at New York tracks in 1952, his renown building with every success. The
sportswriters at New York's seven daily newspapers had hailed him from the
beginning as a young horse to watch, and he had yet to disappoint. Muscular and
riveting, with a gargantuan stride and an unyielding will, he had ambled along
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