The Kingmaker: How Northern Dancer Founded a Racing Dynasty

When Canadian industrialist and Thoroughbred breeder E.P. Taylor watched his well-bred, handsome colt pass unsold through the auction ring, he could hardly have envisioned the degree to which this seeming misfortune would boomerang in his favor. Named Northern Dancer, the sales reject proved his worth by winning the 1964 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes for Taylor. In doing so, he become a Canadian hero. And that was only the beginning. As a stallion, the diminutive Northern Dancer exerted a legendary influence on the breed, at one time commanding a million-dollar stud fee. International competition for his offspring created world records in the auction ring. Respected pedigree authority Avalyn Hunter explores how Northern Dancer and his sons have established a royal dynasty that has profoundly dominated the international bloodstock market.

One of the first pedigree books Avalyn Hunter can recall reading as a fifteen-year-old is Sir Charles Leicester's classic work Bloodstock Breeding , which twenty-five years later served as a model and an inspiration for Hunter's first book, American Classic Pedigrees 1914-2002 . Covering the race records, antecedents, and descendants of the winners of the American Triple Crown races plus the Kentucky Oaks and Coaching Club American Oaks for fillies, the massive work took some two years to write and was released in May 2003 by Eclipse Press. Hunter has also published the award-winning fiction stories "The Passing of the Torch" and "The Foundation," both prizewinners in the Thoroughbred Times' Biennial Fiction Contest, and writes pedigree articles regularly for The Blood-Horse, MarketWatch , and Owner-Breeder International .