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One day in 1949, Kercheval and Vanderbilt decided to mate Geisha, a grey mare sired by Discovery (see pedigree chart}. As sire, they settled on Polynesian, who had been a good middle-distance horse. The pedigree thus projected showed, as the horsemen put it, more speed than stay. But it generally fitted in with Vanderbilt's breeding notions, which, put simply, are to breed "best to best." ("For now," says Vanderbilt, "I guess my formula is simply to breed to a Discovery mare.") Geisha was sent to Kentucky for the breeding, and nearly twelve months later (he was almost a month late) the foal was born.
He had the black look that denotes a future grey.* In November 1951 he was turned over to the solicitous charge of Bill Winfrey. Sent out to California for training at Santa Anita, Native Dancer became a sensation before he ever raced.
The early-morning clockers watched him run against three other yearlings, blinked and looked a second time at their watches: a quarter of a mile in 23 seconds, and he seemed hardly to try. Says Trainer Winfrey: "I knew we had a horse." The Climb to Stardom. The Dancer came back East and ran his first race at Jamaica—a five-furlong sprint—at 7-5 odds. He won by 4½ lengths without even plastering his alert, light grey ears down to his skull and stretching all-out. Said calm but pleased Owner Vanderbilt: "He'll do."
From that day on, the odds on Native Dancer have always been short—a bettor had to risk more than he could win. His record as a two-year-old was a magnificent, munificent whoosh: nine races run, nine races won. Seven of them were stake races. Earnings: $203,495, then an all-time high for a two-year-old.
The experts, who are parsimonious with praise and perfectly capable of splitting a horsehair from four furlongs away on a misty day, began the first cautious forays into the possibility of the Big Grey's greatness. There was talk about the horse's ankles. They puffed out and, at the feel of an expert hand, showed some heat—a sign of trouble in the most fragile area of the thoroughbred's anatomy. But the ankles responded to treatment. Otherwise, the big horse was just about perfect to the expert eye. "I simply can't fault him," says Winfrey.
When the Dancer pranced onto the harrowed dirt of Jamaica in April 1953 to bow in as a three-year-old, he was already a TV personality. His big grey frame was easy to find in the pack, and his handsome, wiggly-eared grey profile was an increasingly familiar sight when the cameras focused on the winner's circles. He went off as 2-6 favorite for the season, took two big prep races with ease. Then came the most glamorous of all, the Kentucky Derby, the "Run for the Roses" at Churchill Downs.