Northern Dancer Dead at 29

Northern Dancer, a champion thoroughbred who fathered champions, was humanely destroyed this morning, the second straight day in which a great sire died.

Northern Dancer was put down after an attack of colic at the advanced age of 29.

“If he were a younger horse we would have sent him to a veterinary hospital for an operation,” said Rick Waldman, vice president of Winfields Farm, the largest shareholder in the horse.

“At his age, it would have been inhumane to subject him to an operation,” Waldman said.

“We tried to loosen the pain in hope that whatever was troubling him would pass.”

On Thursday, Alydar, perhaps the greatest sire of the past 10 years, was destroyed after kicking his stall door and breaking a cannon bone in his right rear leg the day before.

Northern Dancer, probably the greatest sire of all time, was destroyed around 6:15 a.m. at the Northview Stallion Station in Chesapeake City, Md., his home since the early 1970s.

“It was a difficult decision, but he was going through a lot of pain and had become dangerous to himself and those working on him,” Waldman said.

In 1964, Northern Dancer became the first Canadian-bred horse to capture the Kentucky Derby, winning the race in a record-setting performance that was beaten years later by Secretariat.

Northern Dancer, who followed his Derby triumph with a victory at the Preakness, won 14 of 18 starts, including 10 stakes. But he built his reputation after he retired from racing.

He sired 635 named foals, 467 of which won races. He produced 143 stakes winners (23%) and his offspring won an estimated $27 million, according to Waldman.

“The most remarkable thing is that between his sons and him, they sired more than 1,000 stakes winners,” Waldman said. “He was truly a sires of sires.”

Northern Dancer produced his last foal in 1987 at age 27, and his final two yearlings were auctioned off in 1989 at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., for $2.8 million and $700,000. In a span of 22 years, 174 of his yearlings sold at Keeneland for a total of $160 million, or $919,621 per horse.