16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Nice Telling of the Story of the Equine Hero of the 50's, July 21, 2003
This review is from: Native Dancer: The Grey Ghost: Hero of a Golden Age (Hardcover)
With the success of the book "Seabiscuit" by Laura Hillenbrand, more books are being issued of some of the great thoroughbred race horses of the 20th century. John Eisenberg, a newspaper journalist from Baltimore, has written a very good biography of Native Dancer, who was the first horse racing hero in the television age. Native Dancer was a huge gray colt who won all but one race in his career, but the race he lost was the biggest one of all, the Kentucky Derby in 1953.
Eisenberg tells the story of Native Dancer similarly to the way Hillenbrand told her story, focusing on the owner, trainer and jockey while weaving it with the personality of the horse and tying it in with the theme of the era (depression in Hillenbrand's case, the discovery of television in the Dancer's case).
The only criticisms are minor. His focus on Native Dancer's loss to Dark Star in the '53 Derby happens in the middle of the book and is so well written that the rest of the book basically pales in comparison. Whether it is fair or not, Native Dancer is famous because of his one loss, so the victories he had after that (including the final two jewels of the Triple Crown) just don't come off as very important.
But this book gave me a great appreciation of Native Dancer. I don't think we'll see a movie of his life like we will with Seabiscuit, but I do hope we'll see more horse racing books from Mr. Eisenberg in the future (he has another that is even better called "The Longest Shot" about 1992 Derby winner Lil E. Tee).
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Racings original pop star, the equine Elvis Presley.", June 26, 2003
This review is from: Native Dancer: The Grey Ghost: Hero of a Golden Age (Hardcover)
In 1953, Native Dancer, a grey, 3-year-old racehorse bred and owned by Alfred Vanderbilt, captured the hearts and imagination of America and was declared "one of the three most popular figures in the country," along with TV personalities Arthur Godfrey and Ed Sullivan. Winning an incredible twenty-one of his twenty-two races, he was only a few inches away from having a perfect record, losing that one race "by a nose." Horse of the Year in 1954, Native Dancer was an unprecedented choice to grace the cover of Time magazine in May, 1954, just before he retired from racing as a four-year-old.
Author John Eisenberg reports here on the horse, the stable, and all the individuals who were part of his illustrious career, explaining the circumstances which made Native Dancer the darling of the country. Seen by more race fans than any other racehorse in history, thanks to America's recent discovery of the joys of television, he stood out visually from the pack and became "America's first matinee idol." When he began racing in 1952, World War II had been over for only a few years, and the fifties were a decade in which "institutions were to be admired, not challenged." Americans "saw their country as wealthy and invincible," and Native Dancer became a symbol of this power. He was, in fact, so big and so powerful that when he ran, "you could draw a horizontal straight line from his airborne back feet to the tips of his forelegs," his stride measuring an incredible twenty-nine feet.
Having thoroughly researched every conceivable aspect of his story, Eisenberg writes with the journalistic brio of a true lover of horse-racing, and makes the horse, his stupendous bursts of speed out of the pack in the final seconds of his races, and the people surrounding him live again. Through newspaper accounts, photographs, step-by-step reconstructions of the races, interviews with the participants and their heirs, and personal stories by people who remember the horse and his quirks, he turns back the clock to a simpler era and recreates the spirit of the fifties when all the world looked bright. Though Native Dancer was never as lovable as Seabiscuit (and, in fact, once bit off the finger of someone he did not trust), he was a huge and positive presence, an immensely powerful racer who had a tremendous desire to win and the intelligence to know how hard he had to work to accomplish that win. Mary Whipple
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Grey Ghost came within a nose of immortality, March 8, 2005
A Kid's Review
This review is from: Native Dancer: The Grey Ghost: Hero of a Golden Age (Hardcover)
Wow. This horse was an amzing grey. Native Dancer was a superb racehorse that did the things that went beyond people's expectations at the time. I was fully intrigued while reading this book. Just as many people would later argue that Riva Ridge should have been the ninth triple crown winner, that arguement should have sparked up that Native Dancer almost got the title. Losing the derby by a nose his only defeat. An amazing book on this speedy grey thoroughbred.
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