In every sport there are a select few competitors who come to define the
excellence that all others aspire to. In "the sport of kings," there is
one that stands alone. Northern Dancer is not only a Canadian legend,
but the cornerstone of his breed. It has been estimated that 70 percent
of the thoroughbreds alive today are his descendants, which includes the
majority of the horses running in the biggest races around the world.
His offspring received record-breaking prices on the auction floor.
More than his prepotence as a sire, Northern Dancer is known for his
legendary 1964 campaign, which saw him win two of the Triple Crown races
in the U.S. and Canada's Queen's Plate. In that time, he captured the
attention of the world and the hearts of all Canadians. In Northern
Dancer, the world-famous horse comes alive through the people whose
lives he touched: E.P. Taylor, the visionary industrialist whose web of
business placed him at the end of every consumer transaction for every
Canadian and made him the subject of scorn; Horatio Luro, the dapper
Argentinean trainer (and tango dancer, pilot, and race-car driver) who
was notorious for his affairs with Hollywood starlets and his tender
treatment of horses; and Bill Hartack, a wildly successful jockey whose
squabbles with the press and his inability to conceal his unvarnished
thoughts from influential owners and trainers were, by 1964, beginning
to affect his career.
Using news clippings from 1964 and interviews, Kevin Chong offers a
novelistic telling not only of the remarkable 1964 Triple Crown and
Queen's Plate races, but also revisits, fifty years later, the era in
which Canada was struggling to establish an identity, needing, more than
anything, a national hero.
