Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Odds On Racing's

Personality
of the Month
for September 2005

Stanley Dancer

One of the greatest horsemen ever in harness racing was Stanley Dancer. A perfectionist when it came to training and driving harness horses, Stanley was one of the brightest stars of the 20th Century, at the time when the sport was still in its relative infancy.

Stanley epitomized what the sport is and what it should always stand for--his name is not only synonymous with harness racing--his name IS harness racing.

Stanley Franklin Dancer was born on July 25, 1927 in Edinburgh, New Jersey. His parents, Helen and James Dancer were dairy farmers by trade. A young Stanley often showed cows in 4-H projects, but his true passion was horses.

Stanley Dancer

The budding reinsman drove in his first race at Freehold, New Jersey in 1945 with Starling's Girl and again in 1946 with David Guy D. He got his first big break in 1947 on July 11 at Roosevelt Raceway when he piloted Eddie Voici to win by 15 lengths in 2:13. He was just 19-years-old at the time. The rest, as they say, is harness racing history!

Stanley was the leading driver at Yonkers Raceway in 1950--the year that track opened. He had 346 drives with 66 wins, ranking him 15th in the nation. His earnings of $80,623 ranked him 13th in terms of money won that year as well.

Stanley's blue and gold racing silks were recognized as the winningest anywhere, and it is no surprise that he became the first and only trainer (Standardbred or thoroughbred) to win three Triple Crowns---a feat he accomplished with Nevele Pride (1968--trotting), Most Happy Fella (1970--pacing) and Super Bowl (1972--trotting). He also won the only Filly Pacing Triple Crown with Bonjour Hanover in 1966.
StanleyDancerSuperBowl

Stanley piloting Super Bowl to one of his many victories

Stanley is truly a legend who has had many "firsts" in harness racing. He sold the first horse ever for over $1 million in 1964--Noble Victory. He was the first driver to ever win over $1 million in 1965. He trained and drove the first horse to win over $1 million--Cardigan Bay in 1968. He bred the first horse to win over $5 million--Peace Corps. He was also the first president of the New Jersey Standardbred Owners & Breeders Association.

Stanley was inducted into the National Hall of Fame in 1969 and was a USTA Directer for nearly four decades beginning in 1959. He was a member of the New York Sports Museum & Hall Of Fame, the New Jersey Shore Sports Hall of Fame and the Florida USHWA Hall of Fame.

Stanley won 3,700 races in the days when the trainers did their own driving, and has well-over $28 million in purses he amassed himself as a trainer-driver.
StanleyDancerMostHappyFella

Stanley with Most Happy Fella at Roosevelt Raceway

This writer sat down with Stanley on many occasions at his winter training facility at Pompano Park back in the mid-1990s. Stanley was accommodating, friendly and loved recalling the glory days of harness racing of which he such an intregal part. With all of the accomplishments and plateaus he reached during his life--including the great horses that he developed from yearlings--it would be quite easy to fill volumes with stories of his illustrious career. For the purposes here, however, we have to settle for some of Stanley's thoughts on the horses who were merely the tip of the iceberg of his illustrious training and driving career.

StanleyDancerVeryYoung

    Stanley piloting Nevele Pride to victory                   Stanley in his salad days

KR: Who was the worst-gaited horse that you trained & drove that was a good horse?
SD: That would have to be Duenna as a two-year-old. She made three breaks in her first New York Sires Stakes race at Monticello in 1982 and won in 2:13 and a fraction. I had her shoes turned aroudn backwards, and that might have helped her some, but it really didn't cure anything. If it hadn't been for the New York Sires Stakes she wouldn't have raced much as a two-year-old, but as a three-year-old she got to be one of the best gaited horses I ever had, and I could never figure out why she was so bad at two. Usually, when a horse misplaces a hind leg, they put it in between their front ones, and they kind of trip themselves and hit a shin or scalp and it's pretty hard for them to ever overcome that. She was one of the worst I ever had.
     I did catch drive three top horses that were not good gaited horses. One was a horse named Prince J that I drove for Joe O'Brien in the early 1960s. I drove Direct Rhythm for Delvin Miller in 1951, because he was the same age as Tar Heel, and I drove Hayes Hanover for Simpson Jr. He was Free For Aller and a free legged pacer but surely anything but free-gaited!
     One horse that was bad-gaited that turned out later to be really great-gaited was French Chef. He was very hard to get on the pace initially. His two-year-old season he didn't get on a smooth pace until April. He'd half-rack in the hobbles and wanted to trot. He won his first four or five starts, but I wasn't convinced then that he was going to be a good horse, because of his gait. THen when I got to Buffalo and he didn't draw good and he broke the track record, that's when I told Mr Woolworth that I thought he was more than just a nice colt. Then he went on and only lost two heats, and each time had interference or he never would have gotten beat and he retired his two-year-old season with the world's record on the half-mile, 5/8's mile and mile track. That next year he got off a little bit, had tendon trouble and raced a few times, but wasn't the same horse he was at two.

KR: Was he the type of horse that worked out of his bad gait once he hit a top speed?
SD: Yes. Once he learned to go at high speed, and that took some time, then he was perfect gaited. He was slick and nice. But pulling up, he'd pull up on the trot and trot back to the winner's circle in his hobbles. But racing, he was a sweetheart, until he started jumping shadows. In the 1980 Woodrow Wilson, the year Del Insko won with Land Grant, French Chef was the favorite and got into a situation in the race where he was close to going down. In the first turn he got into some trouble with another horse and after that he always thought he saw something that wasn't there and wanted to jump shadows.
     French Chef was out of a Nevele Pride mare which I think gave him some guts, for as a campaigner when he drew bad it never bothered him and he really was a great race colt. But he was never as nice after he got into that mix-up in the Woodrow Wilson. He had to wear a shadow roll after that and he didn't like it, but he was never the same horse after the Wilson.
     Most Happy Fella was a bad-gaited horse and worn only 56 inch hobbles. He would try to step over stuff all the time, so I'd jog him three miles or so first, then bring him in and put the hobbles on him to go a training mile. Yet he won the Triple Crown being gaited that way.
     There was Columbia George and True Luck that were both front-runners, and Most Happy Fella could leave real good and I could beat them away, then let one go and cut it. But in the Messenger Stake, I went to leave from the outside and then ducked to the inside, and got shuffled back to last. Then when I did take him out, I followed a couple, but I was still next to last in the upper turn.   Anyhow, but the time I went to pull him I had to pull him when I did or I never would have gotten there.  I was pushed four-wide in the upper turn, but it was the final leg of the Triple Crown.
     Most Happy Fella won the first heat of the Little Brown Jug, got beat in the second and won the Final. But that day I had all kinds of bad racing luck. In fact, I had a lot of bad racing luck with that horse and he was bad-gaited, but he still won the Triple Crown. Whereas with Super Bowl or Nevele Pride, they had realitively easy races. Outisde of Supr Bowl with the "tire" incident, and Nevele Pride in the Yonkers Trot where he got away from the gate poorly, they were pretty much in a class by themselves, unlike Most Happy Fella.

KR: Which of your horses has had the fastest foot speed on both the trot and the pace?
SD: I did race two horses in the middle 1950s when we had a short meet of two and a half months at Yonkers before we'd go to Rosecroft. At Yonkers I won with two different horses: Tokyo Express and Mighty Sassy, both on the trot and the pace. I also raced a free-legged pacer named Chet Hanover who won both on the trot and the pace, but these horses weren't the kind that had that really high speed. Donerail probably had as much high speed as any horse I'd seen in the 1990s.   He was fantasic.

KR: What about horses that could get away from the gate quickly?
SD: I had a lot of them that could get away quickly. At the time I got a lot of credit for changing the style of racing, because in those days hardly anybody left. But I had a homemade gate at hte farm that I used for most of my horses. My horses could leave well, but I could also take them back and many times with that style you'd win races, especially going in 2:08 or 2:09. Bu tthere were a lot of horses that could leave well, and some that you couldn't rate, and they made it tough.
     I had a horse I bought one time out west for Morey Amsterdam, when we could change their names, and he changed his name to Yukapuk, his theme song. I must have won seven in a row with him and then he got to stopping. The trainer who worked for me for a long time--Dick Baker--was with me then, and in a conversation before a race one night at Yonkers with Yukapuk I told him, "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to race this horse in a hole tonight." Dick laughed and said, "Well, it might be the last thing you ever do."
     So I left out of there with Yukapuk and went to the front, and I let somebody go, and the horse was really pulling bad, and I was right on the guy's back. Back in the paddock Dick told the grooms "I'd better get ready to go pick the jock up, because he's choking down and I don't think he's going to go much further."
     Sure enough, we hit the half and the horse was starting to stagger and I got him out, and we didn't get run over, but we hit the fence. He survived and I survived, but Dick wanted to know if I had learned anything.
     I said to him, "See, I raced him in the hole tonight." And he said, "Yes, it proved a lot, didn't it?"
     Well, Dick proved his point to me, but that's an example of those kinds of horses that make it tough on a driver. A horse that can only race on the front end, and has no other style, can make it tough in a situation like that.

KR: After watching the tapes of your races, it seemed like you were often agressive in reaching the front end early in a race.
SD: Anytime you can get to the front and control the race you've got a big advantage, as long as you don't run your horse down. If you can keep the guy on the outside of you, or in behind you, that you've got to beat, you've got an advantage. But races don't go that way anymore and today you've got the passing lane, which i think defeats the whole purpose that I won so many races with. With the passing lane, the guy that you can back into in the two-hole, can get out behind you in the end, so there's no point anymore.
     I've got a photo of me driving Cardigan Bay with True Duane in the two-hole and he's trying to get out, trying to get inbetween us, and our wheels hooked there a little, but he never did get out and I won the race. Today, with the passing lane, it would've been clear sailing for him. Today the style of racing is all front-end speed. If you watch a lot of the top drivers at the Meadowlands, most of the drivers there want to be second-over and I can see why too.
     But with Duenna in the 1983 Hambletonian, I drew second in the second tier and that's probably the luckiest race I've ever driving in, in my life. She hated the mud, she was fussy and that day it was really muddy. Mud was flying and hitting her in the face and by the time I hit the first turn, I was second on the rail in the two-hole. There were two or so parked out, maybe more, but then two got out and positions changed and I was fourth along the rail, so I took her out and before I knew it I was in front and she won that heat easy.
     The next heat the first five each came back. It was hot and muggy and she was in the second division and really didn't have enough time to blow out, and when we started to the gate we didn't go far before she started to run. So I wheeled her around quick, and I remember Allan Levitt was the announcer and he said, "Stanley said she was a fussy mare, and there's something wrong with her. He's starting back to the paddock, he's changing something...no, no, no...I guess he's going to score with her a little bit."
     Well, what I did was taker her up and make her trot along. And she got away and won that heat easy. I had some good horses to beat that time too, like Joie De Vie and TV Yankee. Eldon harner had kind of an average colt in there and I let him go and I know that Glen Garnsey was pretty upset with me. But I didn't have a lot of room and I came pretty quick to go back to the front with her, which is the logical move. I've had it done to me the same way and I don't like it, but that's horse racing. Then I got back to the front and Campbell came and I would have backed off and let him sit on the outside, but there were nine of them in there so I decided to move on and he got in the hole behind me and I won easily. But she wasn't like a Nevele Pride or a Super Bowl, she wasn't in the same class as them. But she did beat the colts and some good horses later. She did beat them more than once, anyway.

KR: What was one of your most unusual experiences behind the gate? In a race?
SD: I’ve been in a lot of unusual situations, but the most interesting would be back in the early 1950s. I drove when we didn’t have a starting gate, with hand starts, and with the Smith gate that ran right along side the horses on the hub rail. I was racing a chestnut filly by Titan Hanover, and in those days she could trot pretty good, but today she wouldn’t even qualify. Anyway, she would make some crazy breaks behind the gate and lunge, and she had done it enough times with me. So the start, Steve Phillips told me, "If she makes a break tonight you run her right out of there."
     So, sure enough as soon as the wings closed she made one of those lunging loops, and I thought I’d better do as he says. I was eight-wide and I let her run out of there and when she finally hit the trot there was only a 16th of a mile to go, and I won. Then, the judges called me and wondered what I was doing, and I told them what the starter had said, and they slung down the phone, I’m sure thinking it was very strange.
     I had another horse named Lucas Luck and when the gate closed one night he just feel and went end over end, but came back up and I won the race with him. That was before they had the rule that you’ve got to scratch a horse if he goes down before the start. It was the last race of the night at Roosevelt Raceway and I was in the paddock washing the mud off of me and Billy Haughton looked at me and said "Boy, it looks like you broke your finger." It appeared that I had broken it and when I go to the hospital, sure enough it was broken.
     I’ve had a lot of mishaps, just like everybody. One makes a break at the gate, you hook wheels, one runs in and one runs out, one goes down and everybody follows. It happens.
     The incident with Super Bowl in the Kentucky Futurity was just one of those things. In the first heat the guy behind me just stuck his toes in my wheel and it went flat. You can’t complain about things like that either because I’ve done it myself unintentionally. Maybe I backed into him or he came out a little early. And I won the heat anyway.
     But in the second heat the same thing happened much earlier in the race, at the quarter and I had just let Billy (Haughton) go with Sparten Hanover when George (Sholty) came out behind me again. He pulled at the same time I started out of the hole with my horse and the same tire blew again. That was very unusual, especially the same two horses, the same day, two heats. But Super Bowl won the race. I was just really worried that the tire would come away and the rim would be right on the ground.

KR: How do you think a Nevele Pride or Super Bowl would race against horses of today?
SD: Well, Nevele Pride could do anything. For instance, when he won the Hambletonian, the press leading up to that was incredible. Sports Illustrated had been following me around for two weeks, since I had Nevele Pride at DuQuoin and had trained him down there a few times. Anyway, they came and asked me to go to the draw for post positions of the Hambletonian. It was something I really didn’t like to do. There was a guy there covering the story and before I could say anything he asked me if he could go and I said "be my guest."
     So he came back shaking his head and saying "never again, never again, I don’t even want to tell you about it."
     So I said what happened? And he said, "he drew the nine-hole." I said how many are in there, and he said "nine." I said that’s no problem.
     Nevele Pride could always leave, so I wasn’t worried. For me it was better than to be in the second tier, because he was tough in a hole, if somebody came, he wanted to get out of there.
     In the Hambletonian, there no sooner shut the wings and he went from ninth to first in a couple of steps. I would love to have Albatross and Nevele Pride today, and Cardigan Bay and Su Mac Lad. I think they would all have held their own today, although there’s no way of comparing times of them with the times they’re going today.
     Two-year-olds are going as fast as some of those horses went. For instance, my filly Act Of Grace won with Campbell in 1:55.3 in 1994 and he was taking her back. That’s 1/5 off the world’s record and she was well within herself. But to say she’s a Nevele Pride or some horse like that, I can’t, although she’s already gone faster.
     How fast would Super Bowl, Nevele Pride and Albatross go today? There’s just no way of telling, but I’d love to have a chance with those horses today.

KR: Are most of the races with those horses imprinted in your mind? Can you recall how some of those races went?
SD: Oh sure. For instance, Nevele Pride could be a little tough on a half-mile track. He liked to bear in, and wore a burr head-pole on the inside. He won races at Yonkers with his head cranked around in the turns like that. But that’s another thing: we didn’t have as many mile tracks as we’ve got today. Most of our racing was done on half-milers. So I think a horse like Nevele Pride would really be able to trot up a storm, given today’s conditions.

KR: Tell me something about Nevele Pride’s personality.
SD: I had a couple of night watchmen for Nevele Pride because he had been sold for a lot of money. Each one of those guys lost a couple of fingers when they were watching him. The best part, though, was when we went to break him. My brother had raced his dam for some people, and she could trot around 2:06 on a half. There weren’t many Star’s Pride that year, and my brother told me he knew where there was this beautiful colt, that the people wanted $20,000 for. I was up at Liberty bell at the time and we flew over to see him at the farm he was at. He was in a paddock by himself and I opened the door to start to go in and the people said "Oh, you’d better not go in there, you can’t go in there with him." So I picked up a little stick and threw it at him and he trotted across the yard at me with both feet swinging. So I bought him then and there for $20,000, but $1,000 tax.
     When we got him home, he was tough. He’d run at you and stuff like that. Three of my best grooms that I had at the time had him, each for about three weeks, maybe four. Nevele Pride was always grabbing at them or striking out at them in the stall. If you’d pick up his hind feet he’d slap one back at you. As long as you watched him, you were alright. When they’re that good, you can put up with a lot. He never bit me though, he only grabbed my sleeve once.
     One night at Roosevelt, after warming him up for the Dexter Cup, the groom started to take his bridle off and when he did, the horse grabbed his whole hand and almost got loose, but I grabbed him by the head halter.
     He was a perfect gentleman on the racetrack, other than you didn’t want to get trapped in a hole with him. The only time I really lost a race with him was at Springfield, Illinois when he was three. I let somebody god, and before I could get him back out again, I got trapped in. Then Ralph Baldwin came fast on the outside with Snow Speed and I still couldn’t get out. He got to grabbing on pretty good and I stepped on a wheel and all but went down. Then my wheel caught Cameron’s and I almost was flipped out, but he came back trotting. Of course in the next heat he was all by himself and broke the track record. About every time I lost a race, it was a situation where I thought I was doing the right thing with him, but it was always a case that I couldn’t get him back out and he’d get hard to handle.