Northern Dancer

[Tauhei Notts 1,412]

Spare a thought today, Thursday, for it marks the sixtieth anniversary of the birth of Northern Dancer.

He was a May foal, he was too small to be much good, he was too small to be a classic horse, he was too small to make a stallion, he was by an unimportant sire; but he turned out okay.

From his second crop a big stretchy bay, rather unlike his sire, Nijinsky won his first eleven races, including the British triple crown, like Bahram did in 1935.

Very good sires rarely get more than one really good son to carry on their male line, but Northern Dancer had the likes of Sadler's Wells, Lyphard, Nureyev, The Minstrel, Vice Regent, Northern Taste, Storm Bird, Danzig and Try My Best amongst others.

From the perspective of history, the more Northern Dancer we find in a pedigree, the better.  Genetically, he's as close as we've come in breeding to something that's all good.

So, on 27th May, take a moment and heave a sigh.  Think of past glories and the little bay horse who could.

I note that in each of the past four group one races at Ellerslie, where they show an extended pedigree of each runner, that every contestant has some Northern Dancer blood in at least one part of their pedigree.

Thanks to Frank Mitchell for the above.

[Red Rum 1,833]

11 hours ago, Tauhei Notts said:

Spare a thought today, Thursday, for it marks the sixtieth anniversary of the birth of Northern Dancer.

He was a May foal, he was too small to be much good, he was too small to be a classic horse, he was too small to make a stallion, he was by an unimportant sire; but he turned out okay.

From his second crop a big stretchy bay, rather unlike his sire, Nijinsky won his first eleven races, including the British triple crown, like Bahram did in 1935.

Very good sires rarely get more than one really good son to carry on their male line, but Northern Dancer had the likes of Sadler's Wells, Lyphard, Nureyev, The Minstrel, Vice Regent, Northern Taste, Storm Bird, Danzig and Try My Best amongst others.

From the perspective of history, the more Northern Dancer we find in a pedigree, the better.  Genetically, he's as close as we've come in breeding to something that's all good.

So, on 27th May, take a moment and heave a sigh.  Think of past glories and the little bay horse who could.

I note that in each of the past four group one races at Ellerslie, where they show an extended pedigree of each runner, that every contestant has some Northern Dancer blood in at least one part of their pedigree.

Thanks to Frank Mitchell for the above.

The last Northern Dancer offspring to run in Europe was a filly called Wajd ,out of Dahlia so the best to the best . Bred by Nelson  Bunker Hunt and owned by Sheik Mohammed . She was  trained by Andre Fabre. She was very good and ridden during her  career by Asmussen, Cauthen and the Choir Boy Walter Swinburn  before Jarnet rode her in a Japan Cup . She ended up producing a few good ones , Nedawi who won a St Leger and placed in some top line races the year after Leger win. Nedawi ended up a successful stallion in Brazil and I see he still has runners there.  Another she produced was Wall Street the first horse to win for  Dettori in his magnificent 7 at Ascot in 96 . She also produced a horse that ended up jumping round Down Royal needing binoculars to see the leaders .