(8 of 10)
3:40 p.m. In the jockeys' room, the riders slip on their silks. Thin-faced Eric Guerin, the Cajun-born veteran who is about to ride the Dancer for the 20th time (in 21 races), still feels special about it. "You can try to tell someone how good it is, how strong he feels and what it's like to ride him," he says, "but you can't; a guy's just got to ride him to know."Jockey Jack Westrope, whose mount, Magic Lamp, is a 30-to-1 shot, says: "I'm not afraid of the grey horse." Guerin looks at Westrope and walks out, unsmiling.
3:45 p.m. In Stall 2 of the paddock, Owner Vanderbilt and Trainer Winfrey talk casually with visitors. The tack is carried in, and as Winfrey pulls tight the cinch belt the Dancer rears. The crowd gasps, but the horse, icy calm again in a moment, is saddled and led to the walking ring. Instructions to Guerin are simple: "Ride him with confidence."
4:08 p.m. The bugle. A crowd of 39.000 jamming the Belmont grounds waits expectantly as the nine horses stream around the track to the starting gate. The tote board shows that $376,243 had been wagered on the race, 65% of it on the Dancer to win, place or show.
4:19ΒΌ p.m. The starting gate opens and spills a sudden glitter of color on the track. The Dancer starts an alert fifth, almost immediately drops back to eighth.
The crowd accepts it as just the Dancer's routine. Straight Face, in front from the gate, gradually opens a lead. The great murmur of the crowd grows deeper. In the third quarter the Dancer, his head merely rising and falling to the other horses' frenetic bobbing, reaches the quarter pole in fifth place and seven lengths behind Straight Face. The crowd's sound swells into a half-angry, half-keening roar.
4:20 2/3 p.m. By the head of the stretch, the Dancer has plainly beaten the seven others, but Straight Face is going strong, at least six lengths ahead. Jockey Guerin is now worried, and so is the crowd. His whip whacks the Dancer's rump four times. Suddenly the grey rear legs slam out like locomotive drive shafts, the front legs seem to grow another two feet long, and in a few space-gulping strides the Dancer catches Straight Face. As he draws abreast, he rubs it in: perceptibly, the horse slows the huge stride and merely stretches his throbbing neck ahead.
4:21 1/12 p.m. The cameras click, the tote board flashes the red warning "Photo," but the roaring crowd knows the result: another typical Dancer performance of heartbreak first, and then glory.
The treatment has taken only one minute 351/5 seconds (only two-fifths short of the Belmont mile record set by Count Fleet carrying 14 Ibs. less). To do it, the Dancer ran the last quarter in a striking 24 seconds or less.