Gate Dancer Ready for Jockey Club Gold Cup

The bay colt from Jack Van Berg’s barn walks deliberately to the finish line at Belmont Park almost every morning for a therapeutic visit to the scene of his most anxious and costly moments. He stands at the wire more willingly now than he did when the routine designed to improve his behavior in those surroundings was first employed. He wheeled and bucked then, displaying the headstrong behavior for which he has become perhaps too well known.

Despite a tendency to lug in while racing down the stretch, a habit that often interferes with horses who are racing to his left, Gate Dancer has earned more than $1.5 million during a career in which he has started 22 times. He won the 1984 Preakness and Super Derby as a 3-year-old. This year, he has only won the Cornhusker Handicap at Ak-Sar-Ben but was narrowly beaten by Chief’s Crown in the prestigious Marlboro Cup at Belmont three weeks ago and is on a course toward next months Breeders’ Cup at Aqueduct.

Yet it is not likely that his moments of triumph will be those for which Gate Dancer is remembered. It is his disqualification in last year’s Kentucky Derby, which caused the first reorganization of placement in the history of the race. It is the memory of Gate Dancer, Wild Again and Slew o’ Gold, with $3 million at stake, bouncing wildly off each other deep in the Hollywood Park stretch, resulting in Gate Dancer’s disqualification from second place to third in the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Classic. Those incidents may make Gate Dancer a favorite among connoisseurs of sports trivia: the first horse disqualified in the Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic in the same year.

Gate Dancer appears in the morning without the purple hood he has worn while racing since being moved from fourth to fifth place in the Kentucky Derby. Remove it, and Gate Dancer will run with his head held awkwardly high. But his deportment is much more acceptable. He has yet to assault another horse this season.

“He’s matured and grown up a lot since his 3-year-old year,” Van Berg said Thursday, after watching Gate Dancer gallop in preparation for today’s $861,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup, final leg of the New York Racing Association’s Fall Championship Series. “He still wears the earmuffs and everything, but he’s all business and I ain’t changing nothing.”

Certainly, there is no reason for Van Berg to make any radical changes in the preparation of Gate Dancer for the Gold Cup. He will face a group of horses comprised, in great part, of those he finished ahead of in the Marlboro. He will not have to meet Chief’s Crown, who is resting for next month’s Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Seven horses, including the Woody Stephens-trained entry of 3-year-olds Creme Fraiche and Stephan’s Odyssey, which finished 1-2 in the Belmont Stakes in June, were entered Thursday for the 1 1-2-mile Gold Cup’s 67th running. The purse will be the largest offered for a thoroughbred race in New York, surpassing the record established two weeks ago in the Turf Classic.

Gate Dancer, who will be ridden by Chris McCarron, will face a quality group. Greinton, beaten by only a length in the Marlboro, is among those entered, as is Suburban Handicap winner Vanlandingham, who won a photo over Greinton for third money in that race. Creme Fraiche, the gelded Belmont winner, has since won the American Derby, Jerome Handicap and Super Derby. But Van Berg regards the hooded colt he trains for Ken Opstein as the most talented of the Gold Cup participants.

“He ran a big race in the Marlboro, and he didn’t surprise me,” Van Berg said. “Because, there isn’t a better horse around. I’ve had lots of horses with the same behavior problems but none with this kind of talent.”

A son of Sovereign Dancer, Gate Dancer owns a record that supports his trainer’s esteem. In 20 starts on dirt (he is virtually helpless on grass) Gate Dancer has been among the first three finishers in 18 races.

Van Berg, a man who has won more races than any active trainer, watched Gate Dancer gallop Thursday morning and pronounced him ready for the Gold Cup.

“If he ain’t fit by now,” said Van Berg, “he never will be.”