(9 of 10)
4:30 p.m. The crowd, as well as trainer, jockey and owner, are still shaken by the Big Grey's mercilessly teasing performance. "I wanted to start moving up at the half-mile pole," says relieved Jockey Guerin, "but the horse just wouldn't move then. Was I scared? You're damned right, right down to 50 yards away. I rode him with confidence all right"—he manages a sickly grin—"but he damn near betrayed me." The Dancer merely gulps a few big gulps of air, gives his customary fine TV performance in the winner's circle, and saunters down the shady half mile to Barn 20. Millionaire Vanderbilt collects another $28,300 in prize money, making it a total of $781,970 to date for the Dancer. The Dancer gets a meal of some oats, bran, carrots and flaxseed, and the usual victory greeting from Lester Murray: "Come on, you big bum, and I'll do you nice."
The Challenge Ahead. As usual, the Dancer had won by racing only as hard as he pleased, and in his own way. He had still not shown how fast he can really run if pressed or cajoled into it. In his 21 races, he has equaled only one world's record (6½ furlongs on the straightaway in 1:14 2/5). Yet there was not a horseman around last week who dared risk his reputation by insisting that the Dancer could not, if he wanted to, write new times into the record. The Metropolitan proved that the Dancer could take on crack horses at a distance that is not his best, give them ample weight, and beat them. "Every time he goes out and races that way, there is danger for him," said a nerve-racked Dancer lover last week. "But that's one of the things that make him so exciting."
This week the Dancer alarmed his owner and his fans when he developed a "slight sign of a bruise" on his right forefoot, apparently during training. His shoes were pulled off to give him a rest. If all goes well, the Big Grey will try to do it again over a longer distance (1¼ miles) with as much or more of a weight spread in the $50,000 Memorial Day Suburban Handicap. After that, Alfred Vanderbilt can choose to race the horse under a whopping impost (possibly in the 140-lb. area) in the Brooklyn Handicap, or take him West.
Vanderbilt would really like to do neither. He wants to try something else—take his horse to England, where Vanderbilt was born, and prove the Dancer not just a U.S. but a world champion.
He has already entered the horse for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, a one-and-a-half-mile race at Ascot in July, which would mix the Dancer with the best on the other side of the Atlantic. At Ascot, the Dancer would have to race clockwise instead of counterclockwise, on turf instead of dirt, on a course that runs irregularly instead of on a neat, flat oval. The last bend of Ascot's "old mile" rises more than 40 feet in three furlongs. To run the course's ups & downs, a horse must be able to accelerate, slow down, accelerate on demand. Next week, Owner Vanderbilt and Trainer Winfrey plan to fly to Britain to case Ascot for themselves. One of the toughest problems: should Jockey Guerin, who has never ridden the kind of race required by English tracks, ride the Big Grey? It would all be difficult—and challenging.