Northern Dancer
Photograph by: Tony Leonard
No Canadian who witnessed it will ever forget it:
He was a small horse 15.2 hands Northern Dancer, an undersized bay colt from Canada, flashing across the finish line a neck ahead of favourite Hill Rise in the 1964 Kentucky Derby, then repeating the feat two weeks later in the Preakness Stakes.

A nation watched transfixed as Northern Dancer fell just short of racing’s Triple Crown, finishing third in the Belmont Stakes. After winning the Queen’s Plate, he retired to stud, going on to become the greatest thoroughbred sire of the 20th century.

Owner E.P. Taylor, left, with jockey Bill Hartack on Northern Dancer at the 1964 Queen’s Plate and trainer Horatio Luro holding the reins.The horse excited all of Canada in 1964 when he won the first two jewels in thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown — the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes.
Photograph by: Lynn Ball, Ottawa Citizen