Northern Dancer head 1500

NORTHERN DANCER – 1964 Kentucky Derby Winner

Print size 17″ X 20″, Image Size 9.5″ X 13″

This print has been in storage since 1967 and has slight discolorations around the print border which does not distract from the beauty of the print and would be easily covered up when matted and framed.

In becoming the first Canadian-bred horse ever to win the Kentucky Derby, Northern Dancer set a new track record for the Derby’s 1¼ miles of 2:00 flat. This eclipsed the Derby mark of 2:00 2/5 set two years earlier by El Peco Ranch’s Decidedly, who, like Northern Dancer, was trained by Horatio Luro and ridden by Bill Hartack. Ironically, it was an El Peco Ranch colt, Hill Rise that proved Northern Dancer’s closet rival in the Derby, finishing just a neck behind the victor.
Bred by E. P. Taylor, who had completely dominated Canadian racing and breeding for a dozen years, Northern Dancer raced for his Windfields Farm. He is by a Canadian “Horse of the Year.” Nearctic, out of Natalma, a stakes-class Daughter of the great Maryland champion Native Dancer, whose only loss came in the Derby.
Mr. Taylor offered Northern Dancer for $25,000 as a yearling with no takers, so the colt joined the Windfields racing stable. He won seven of nine starts at two, when he raced mostly in Canada, to earn $90,635 as well as victories in the Coronation Futurity, Summer, Carleton and Remsen Stakes.
In 1964, before the Kentucky Derby, he had won four of five starts, including the Florida Derby, Flamingo and Blue Grass Stakes. First money of $114,300 in the Kentucky Derby raised his lifetime earnings to $394,872.