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"Who wants to argue about where a man^should get his thrills?" philosophized one incorrigible. "To me, there is nothing like the thrill of taking in the beauty of the horses and the fruity figures of the tote board and combining them into a certainty worth backing by $2, $5, maybe an occasional $10. The gate opens and they're off. You look with horror on your horse, running a slow last. And you say, 'My God, they are only horses. Why, oh why, did I do it? Why did I trust him?' And you look again, and there he comes zooming down the stretch, past everything in the block, and wins by a nose.
Your judgment is vindicated!"
Birth of a Champ. It is this happy mission of vindication to which the Big Grey appears to have dedicated his meticulously arranged life. The relevant history of the Dancer begins with the man who owns him, handsome, easygoing Multimillionaire Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt.
From his father, also named Alfred Gwynne (who went down with the Lusitania in 1915), the younger A. G. inherited a fortune guessed by some to run as high as $20 million. "About $8,000,000 will catch it," Vanderbilt once corrected.
From his mother, Mrs. Margaret Emerson, daughter of the man who built Bromo-Seltzer into a fortune, he got as a birthday present a nice Maryland stable, Sagamore Farm, 17 miles northwest of Baltimore. Vanderbilt saw his first horse race at Pimlico at the age of ten; 15 years later he led a movement to modernize the old track, and became its president. At St. Paul's School he received daily in a plain brown wrapper the Daily Racing Form. Once, in 1929, he made profitable book among his schoolmates on the Kentucky Derby.
Vanderbilt got his first big horse in 1933—a tough, muscular stallion named Discovery, bought for $25,000 as a two-year-old. At four, Discovery proved to be one of the great weight-carrying handicap horses of all time. A lot of bad racing years followed (including three in which Vanderbilt distinguished himself as a PT boat commander in the Pacific); as recently as 1948, the Vanderbilt stable was 28th on the owners' list —a veritable St. Louis Brown's finish.
But then the Vanderbilt silks—cerise and white—began to fly more jauntily. Discovery, at stud, had proved a fine producer, especially of brood mares. Vanderbilt hired an ex-all-America footballer (University of Kentucky) named Ralph Kercheval as manager of his 582-acre Maryland farm. He also took on a smart and modest young man named William C. (for Colin) Winfrey as the stable's full-time trainer. Himself the stepson of a trainer, Winfrey grew up among the horse barns and race tracks, rode a few races before weight grounded him. Today he is considered one of the best in his meticulous, taciturn profession. Vanderbilt's stable was top moneywinner of 1953 ($987,306).