Stanley Dancer
| Stanley Dancer | |
|---|---|
| Occupation |
Harness racing : driver / trainer / owner |
| Born |
July 25, 1927 West Windsor Township, New Jersey, USA |
| Died | September 9, 2005 (aged 78) Pompano Beach, Florida, USA |
| Career wins | 3,781 |
| Major racing wins | |
| International Trot (1961, 1963) | |
| Honours | |
|
United States Harness Racing Hall of Fame (1969) Little Brown Jug Wall of Fame (1989) |
|
| Significant horses | |
| Albatross, Cardigan Bay, Keystone Ore, Most Happy Fella, Nevele Pride, Silent Majority, Su Mac Lad, Super Bowl | |
Stanley Franklin Dancer (July 25, 1927 – September 9, 2005) was an American harness racing driver and trainer. He was the only horsemen to drive and train three Triple Crowns in horse racing. In total, he drove 23 Triple Crown winners. He was the first trainer to campaign a horse to $1 million in a career, Cardigan Bay in 1968 and drove the Harness Horse of the Year seven times. During his career, he won over $28 million and 3,781 races and was called by the United States Trotting Association "perhaps the best-known personality in the sport".
Dancer was born in West Windsor Township, New Jersey on July 25, 1927 and grew up on a farm in the New Egypt section of Plumsted Township, New Jersey, living in the area for almost his entire life on a 160-acre (0.65 km2) farm with a half-mile training track before moving to Pompano Beach, Florida in 1999. He dropped out of school after eighth grade.
He borrowed silks for his first race, driving a horse he had bought for $75 using money he had won from a 4-H Club. He started driving horses at Freehold Raceway in 1945, winning his first race the following year. Dancer started his stable in 1948 with a trotter he had bought using $250 of his wife's college savings. That horse, Candor, took home $12,000 during the following three years.
A spindly 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m), and weighing in at 135 pounds (61 kg), Red Smith described him as not looking "old enough to be let out for night racing." Despite his size, he used an aggressive, all-out style right from the start, and retained his aggressive methods despite 32 racing spills — including a 1955 incident in which he broke his back — four car accidents, and crashes in both an airplane and a helicopter, as well as two heart attacks during his driving career. He had been given physician's guidance to quit racing, but declined to take the advice, noting that "There is nothing dangerous about harness racing. The worst crackup I ever had came in an auto accident."
...
Wikipedia