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Northern Dancer (May 27, 1961 – November 16, 1990) was a Canadian-bred Thoroughbred racehorse that won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes and became the most successful sire of the 20th century. As a competitor, Blood-Horse magazine ranks him as one of the top 100 U.S. Thoroughbred champions of the 20th century. As a sire, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association calls him "one of the most influential sires in Thoroughbred history".〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Windfields Farm )〕 A bay stallion, Northern Dancer was sired by Nearctic through the mare Natalma, whose sire was Native Dancer.〔de Bourg, Ross, "The Australian and New Zealand Thoroughbred", Nelson, West Melbourne, 1980, ISBN 0-17-005860-3〕 Northern Dancer's grandsire was the English-based horse Nearco, two-time British Isles Sire of the Year. In 1952, Edward P. Taylor, Canadian business magnate and owner of Windfields Farm, attended the December sale at Newmarket, England, where he purchased the Irish dam Lady Angela, a daughter of six-time British Isles Sire of the Year Hyperion. In 1953, Taylor had Lady Angela bred to Nearco before bringing her to his farm in Canada, where she foaled Nearctic in early 1954. Nearctic was Canadian Horse of the Year in 1958, a feat that Northern Dancer would match in 1964. Despite his strong pedigree, Northern Dancer was a diminutive horse and did not find a buyer at his $25,000 reserve price at the yearling sales.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Northern Dancer, Hall of Fame Inductee, 1976 )〕 As a result, Northern Dancer stayed in the Windfields Farm racing stable—an inauspicious start to a racing dynasty.〔 ==Racing career== Northern Dancer was ridden by Ron Turcotte in his first victory as a two-year-old at Fort Erie Race Track. He won the Summer Stakes and the Coronation Futurity in Canada and the Remsen Stakes in New York. His record of seven victories in 9 starts earned him the Canadian Juvenile Championship. At three, Northern Dancer won the Grade I Flamingo Stakes and Grade I Florida Derby with jockey Bill Shoemaker aboard. Before the running of the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Kentucky, trainer Horatio Luro asked Shoemaker to commit to riding Northern Dancer in the Kentucky Derby. But Shoemaker chose a colt he had never ridden named Hill Rise as his Derby mount. The unbeaten Hill Rise had won the San Felipe Stakes and the Grade I Santa Anita Derby in California. Shoemaker campaigned hard to get Hill Rise as his mount, believing the colt represented his best chance for a Derby win. As a result of Shoemaker's decision, Bill Hartack became Northern Dancer's permanent jockey and guided him to victories in the Blue Grass and the Kentucky Derby, winning the latter race over a fast-finishing Hill Rise in a record time that stood until Secretariat broke it in 1973. Hartack and Northern Dancer won the Preakness Stakes and finished third in the Belmont Stakes to Quadrangle and Roman Brother. After the Belmont, Northern Dancer won Canada's Queen's Plate by seven and a half lengths before tenderness in his left front tendon ended his racing career. He was named both North America's champion three-year-old colt of 1964 and Canadian Horse of the Year. In his two years of racing, Northern Dancer won 14 of his 18 races and never finished worse than third. In ''The Blood-Horse'' ranking of the top 100 U.S. Thoroughbred champions of the 20th century, he was ranked #43. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Northern Dancer」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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