Northern Dancer Blog: Melbourne Cup 2012 - The Race That Stops a Nation

Monday, November 5, 2012

Melbourne Cup 2012 - The Race That Stops a Nation

Green Moon Wins the $6M 2012 Melbourne Cup holding off Fiorente and Jakkalberry. It sure looked like the 59KG was too much for the favourite Dunaden to repeat. It was a clean sweep for the Irish breds and a clean sweep for the Northern Dancer grandkids. Green Moon's sire the French bred Montjeu is one of the leading sires in the world and grandson of Northern Dancer through Sadlers Wells.

1) Green Moon (IRE) great grandson x3
2) Fiorente (IRE) great great great grandson
3) Jakkalberry (IRE) great great grandson

images from Getty

video of race
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_NKzephhWU

1 comment:

AdamNovember 12, 2012 at 6:42 AM
Blog looks great. I can't remember from your book but has there been any horse that can compete with the dancer's blood? If things keep going at this pace, soon enough all world class racehorses will be a part of his ancestory.
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Reason for the Blog

I thought it was time to extend the story I started in 2005. This will be a busy week in November 2009 for thoroughbred racing and something tells me my little hero will have played a significant role by the end of the week.

I wrote that on November 2, 2009 and I would say that the Dancer is still playing a significant role. I am trying to update the status of Northern Dancer's legacy using excerpts from my book which was completed in 2007 and published in 2008 along with today's thoroughbred racing news. If you are confused it may be because in addition to inserting the latest (2009) news I also decided to shift around my chapter flow from the original book which also featured many time shifted chapters to begin with. I am confusing myself just trying to describe it. Back to the future - it is Nov 12, 2009 for another 5 minutes.

Quotes describing Northern Dancer from the CBC Life and Times Biography

"They say the north wind was tangled in his mane"

"The pony from Canada"

"The little dancer"

"The little horse with a big heart"

"He gave you more resasons to love him"

"You can see the soul of an animal through his eye and Northern Dancer had a particularly deep eye, it was as if you could see forever in there"

"What he represented to us was the heroic"

"Little guy ... big heart, trying his best, never gave up ... it was heroic"

on his relationship with E.P. Taylor - "It was alchemy, they transformed each other"

"He became a Canadian hero"