Horse Racing: Dancer’s Image, an American Thoroughbred racehorse
The only American Thoroughbred racehorse who was disqualified from the Kentucky Derby after he won the prestigious meet, Dancer’s Image was foaled in 1965. He was sired by Native Dancer out of Noors Image. The gray coloured stallion was bred and owned by
Ryemeadow Farms and Peter Fuller respectively. The colt was put under the training of Lou Cavalaris Jr., and was ridden by jockey Bobby Ussery in the Kentucky Derby.
The racehorse started his athletic career at the age of two. He went on to win the graded stakes events in Maryland and the ones that were run at Woodbine Racetrack in the Canadian city of Ontario. The races that were contended by him in his first racing
season in the year 1967 are included in the list of the stallion’s major wins. These races are the Clarendon Stakes (1967), Grey Stakes (1967), Vandal Stakes (1967) and the Maryland Futurity Stakes (1967).
The racehorse was then sent as a heavy favourite for the 1968 United States Triple Crown races. In the lead up to the three jewels of the Triple Crown, the talented thoroughbred contended several significant races including the Grade I Wood Memorial Stakes.
As for the Kentucky Derby, Dancer’s Image was sent out as a second choice. The main competition for the racehorse at this Derby came from the Calumet Farm’s Florida Derby and Blue Grass Stakes winner Forward Pass.
Unluckily for Dancer’s Image, he had a sore ankle before the race began. To treat this issue, he was given a pain killer medicine which had phenylbutazone, a banned and illegal chemical at the racetrack. He was thus disqualified from the race even after
he finished the event in the first place. The same pain killer and anti inflammatory drug is the most commonly used drug in the industry today.
Forty years after disqualification of Dancer’s Image, his owner Peter Fuller still believes that his horse’s disqualification was a result of a conspiracy plotted by the aristocrats of the Kentucky racing. Talking to the correspondents after his horse’s
disqualification from one of the most exalted races of the American Horse Racing Industry, Fuller was reported as saying, “I was stunned, absolutely stunned.” Fuller also claimed that the second test that was carried out on Dancer’s Image urine to
test for the illegal chemical did not come out positive and still the horse was disqualified.
The second place finisher of the Kentucky Derby, Forward Pass was then declared as the winner of the event. This created a huge deal of controversy in North America and the issue became a hot topic of discussion and was also became the cover story of many
magazines including the ever famous Sports Illustrated.
The controversy still continues as the Churchill Downs media guide 2008 shows Dancer’s Image as the winner of the 1968 Kentucky Derby. The New York Times has also named this event as the “most controversial decision in all of Triple Crown racing.”
The controversial winner of the Kentucky Derby then went on to contend the second leg of the Triple Crown, the 1968 Preakness Stakes. He finished the race in the third place. Yet again, the thoroughbred was disqualified and sent back to the eighth position.
However, this time the disqualification was not due to the consumption of the banned chemical but because Dancer’s Image banged the horse Martins Jig.
Due to the prolonged ankle issues, the racehorse was finally retired and shipped to stand at stud at the Maryland area of Windfields Farm. The colt was then sold by his owners in the year 1974. He was then shipped to breeders in Ireland. After France, he
was eventually sent to stand at stud in Japan, where he died on the 26th of December 1992 at the age of 27.
A couple of books and memorials have also been written down on the story of the thoroughbred racehorse, who retired with a purse earning of $ 236,636.
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