Northern Dancer Blog: Breeders Cup 2009 in the books

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Breeders Cup 2009 in the books

It was another typical Breeders Cup with 37 of the 42 top three spots represented by descendants of Northern Dancer who took home over 80% of the $25,000,000+ in purse money. There were amazing performances by two mares in Goldikova and Zenyatta, with Zenyatta retaining her perfect record (unfortunately she was one of the five who were not descendants of our Dancer but it didn't stop me from cheering for her).

Let's meet a few more of the great grandkids.

That's Twice Over chasing down Zenyatta in the Classic

Conduit winning the Breeders Cup Turf

Furthest Land winning the Dirt Mile

The brilliant mare Goldikova winning the Mile

Vale of York nosing out his distant cousins in the Juvenile

Dancing in Silks noses out more distant cousins in the Sprint

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Gorgeous images from AP/Getty and Yahoos Photo Gallery. Here is the link to the full gallery.

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/rah/gallery

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Reason for the Blog

I thought it was time to extend the story I started in 2005. This will be a busy week in November 2009 for thoroughbred racing and something tells me my little hero will have played a significant role by the end of the week.

I wrote that on November 2, 2009 and I would say that the Dancer is still playing a significant role. I am trying to update the status of Northern Dancer's legacy using excerpts from my book which was completed in 2007 and published in 2008 along with today's thoroughbred racing news. If you are confused it may be because in addition to inserting the latest (2009) news I also decided to shift around my chapter flow from the original book which also featured many time shifted chapters to begin with. I am confusing myself just trying to describe it. Back to the future - it is Nov 12, 2009 for another 5 minutes.

Quotes describing Northern Dancer from the CBC Life and Times Biography

"They say the north wind was tangled in his mane"

"The pony from Canada"

"The little dancer"

"The little horse with a big heart"

"He gave you more resasons to love him"

"You can see the soul of an animal through his eye and Northern Dancer had a particularly deep eye, it was as if you could see forever in there"

"What he represented to us was the heroic"

"Little guy ... big heart, trying his best, never gave up ... it was heroic"

on his relationship with E.P. Taylor - "It was alchemy, they transformed each other"

"He became a Canadian hero"