In his first crop, foaled in 1966, Northern Dancer sired ten stakes winners from 21 foals, a 47.6% strike rate. Had he maintained that percentage throughout his 22 subsequent crops of foals, Northern Dancer would have been, hands down, the best sire of racehorses in the history of the Thoroughbred breed.

Instead, the great son of Nearctic was about half that good over his entire career, with 146 stakes winners from 645 foals or 22.6%. That made him the best sire of the second half of the 20th century. Only Bold Ruler and his sire, *Nasrullah, managed similar percentages in that era and, though still powerful, their male lines have been all but overwhelmed over the last 25 years by the descendants of Northern Dancer.

Foaled on May 27, 1961, at E. P. Taylor's Windfields Farm near Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, Northern Dancer came from the first crop of Taylor's Canadian champion Nearctic and was the first foal of the great Canadian breeder's stakes-placed Native Dancer mare Natalma. The late foaling date occurred because Natalma had chipped a knee while training for the Kentucky Oaks at three in 1960 and was rushed off to the breeding shed to help fill Nearctic's book.

Northern Dancer was a small but powerful colt with a lively temperament. Fortunately, he inherited neither his dam's calf knees nor his sire's curby hocks. Despite his small stature, he was one of three yearlings priced at $25,000 for Windfields's annual private, prepriced yearling sale in 1962. The other two sold; luckily for Taylor, Northern Dancer did not.

Northern Dancer made his debut for Windfields's second-string trainer T. P. Fleming on August 2, 1963, winning a 5 1/2-furlong maiden race at Fort Erie racetrack by 6 3/4 lengths in 1:06 1/5 under apprentice rider Ron Turcotte. He was beaten four lengths by Ramblin Road in the 6 1/2-furlong Vandal Stakes at the same track two weeks later but then scored a 1 1/4-length victory in the Summer Stakes over a mile on turf in heavy going.

Transferred to Luro

That victory earned him a promotion to Windfields's first-string trainer, Horatio Luro, at Woodbine racetrack, but he ran second to Grand Garcon while conceding that colt 11 pounds in the Cup and Saucer Stakes in his first start for the South American-born horseman.

Under the Racing Hall of Fame trainer's tutelage, however, Northern Dancer closed his two-year-old season with a five-race win streak, including the Coronation Futurity and Carleton Stakes in Canada. He sealed his reputation as the best juvenile in Canada with two wins at Aqueduct, first trouncing Futurity Stakes winner Bupers by eight lengths in a mile allowance race and then beating Lord Date by two lengths in the Remsen Stakes.

Northern Dancer was rated joint-sixth at 123 pounds (three below champion Raise a Native, who already had been retired to stud) on the Experimental Free Handicap, and his potential as a classic colt was obvious.

Half fit, he was beaten in his first start at three in 1964 and then won six consecutive races-an allowance, the Flamingo Stakes, Florida Derby, Blue Grass Stakes, Kentucky Derby, and Preakness Stakes. Each of those victories was characterized by his ability to sit just off the pace at a high cruising speed, produce a sharp burst of acceleration at the crucial moment, and then persevere gamely to the wire.

In the Kentucky Derby, 3.40-to-1 Northern Dancer showed the advantage of being small and shifty, staying clear of trouble on the final turn while the larger, longer-striding, 7-to-5 favorite Hill Rise required more than a furlong to regain his momentum after being stopped briefly. The little Nearctic colt, three weeks short of his actual third birthday, won by a neck over Hill Rise in a track-record 2:00 and became a Canadian national hero.

Northern Dancer won the Preakness by daylight, prevailing by 2 1/4 lengths over The Scoundrel, who had finished third in the Derby, with Hill Rise-again favored despite the Derby result-taking third. Northern Dancer's winning streak ended in the Belmont Stakes, in which he finished third, sixth lengths behind winner Quadrangle. The colt strained a tendon slightly in the race, but he may not have stayed the Belmont's 1 1/2 miles in any event. Luro held him together for one more race, winning the Queen's Plate Stakes by 7 1/2 lengths, but the tendon went soon afterward and ended Northern Dancer's racing career.

Unexpected brilliance

Champion three-year-old of 1964 and Horse of the Year in Canada, Northern Dancer retired to stud with a record of 14 wins in 18 starts, two seconds and two thirds, with earnings of $580,647. He stood his first season in 1965 at Windfields in Ontario for a $10,000 fee. While that was a high fee for Canada, few expected the chunky little bay to have much impact as a sire outside his native land.

That first crop included 1968 Canadian champion juvenile and Horse of the Year Viceregal (out of Victoria Regina, by *Menetrier), dual Canadian champion handicap horse Dance Act (*Queen's Statute, by Le Lavandou), top-class grass stayer One for All (out of Quill, by *Princequillo), 1971 Widener Handicap winner True North, and 1969 Canadian Oaks winner Cool Mood (Happy Mood, by *Mahmoud).

Therefore, when Irish trainer Vincent O'Brien went to the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society's yearling sale in 1968 to buy a Windfields-bred *Ribot colt for Charles Engelhard, he knew that the sire of a striking bay colt out of Canadian Oaks winner Flaming Page, by Bull Page, could sire runners.

O'Brien did not like that *Ribot colt, Northern Monarch, but he loved the Northern Dancer colt out of Flaming Page, and bought him for $84,000. That colt was Nijinksy II, only winner of the English Triple Crown (in 1970) in the last 65 years.

The sale of Nijinksy II and his subsequent achievements turned out to be the turning point of Northern Dancer's stud career. Nijinsky II made him leading sire in England in 1970, and when O'Brien joined a partnership with Robert Sangster and John Magnier after Engelhard's death, it was the progeny of Northern Dancer that the trio pursued most heartily.

The O'Brien, Sangster, Magnier team bought (or bred) and raced Northern Dancer's top-class sons The Minstrel (Fleur, by Victoria Park), Be My Guest (What a Treat, by *Tudor Minstrel), El Gran Senor (Sex Appeal, by Buckpasser), Storm Bird (South Ocean, by New Providence), Try My Best (Sex Appeal, by Buckpasser), and Sadler's Wells (Fairy Bridge, by Bold Reason).

Nijinsky II's success also made Northern Dancer too big for Canada. In 1969, he was moved to Windfields's Maryland branch, where he remained until his death in 1990; he had been pensioned in 1987. Northern Dancer's progeny fueled the bloodstock boom of the 1980s, and no-guarantee seasons changed hands for $1-million during that period. Northern Dancer led the United States sire list in 1971 and the English list in '70, '77, '83, and '84.

Nijinsky II

Nijinsky II was Northern Dancer's first-and best-international champion. Winner of the first 11 of his 13 starts, the big, powerful, sickle-hocked Nijinsky II bore a strong physical resemblance to the Bull Lea-line ancestors of his dam but displayed every bit of Northern Dancer's fire and electricity. Standing at Claiborne Farm, he was almost as successful as his sire, leading the English sire list in 1986.

More a sire of stayers than of speed horses, Nijinsky II was never as prominent on the American list, with a third in 1987 his high-water mark, but he led the American broodmare sire list in 1993-'94. Not long after his death in 1992, he surpassed his sire's record for stakes winners, with a career total of 155 stakes winners from 862 foals (18%).

That number included 11 champions and 100 group or graded winners, including 1987 Horse of the Year Ferdinand, 1983 French champion Caerleon, dual English champion Ile de Bourbon, undefeated 1982 Ep