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 ... read full excerpt from: Native Dancer: The Grey Ghost Hero of a Golden Age ebook