Northern Dancer: The Legend and His Legacy by Lennox Muriel

Author:Lennox, Muriel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Beach House Books
Published: 2013-09-19T16:00:00+00:00

• MAY 18, 1964

The Monday following the Preakness, Northern Dancer climbed aboard the waiting horse van. Destination: Belmont Park. The Belmont Stakes was being run at Aqueduct while Belmont’s new grandstand was being built. (The old one had become a firetrap and was closed down in 1962. Construction was completed in 1968.) Luro, however, had stalls and a cottage at Belmont Park, which he used as his training base on the East Coast.

Northern Dancer continued his daily workouts and appeared to be in good physical condition. “Luro began to think that perhaps he was wrong and that the husky, little Canadian colt might actually stay the 12 furlongs of the Belmont,” wrote Joe Hirsch in The Grand Senor.

The Belmont Stakes is considered the most demanding of the U.S. Triple Crown races. The third classic race in seven weeks, it is also the longest. Stamina is critical, and many horses that enter the Derby simply don’t have the physical reserves to carry them through all three races.

In the previous forty-five years there had been only eight Triple Crown winners, and none since Citation in 1948. In 1963, Chateaugay had come close, winning the Derby and the Belmont, but he was second in the Preakness. In 1961, the popular Carry Back won the first two, but, in one of the most surprising upsets in the history of the Belmont, he finished seventh.

Now it was Northern Dancer’s turn to try to win all three races.

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