Northern Dancer Herd

Hi, Michael Armstrong here, writer of this blog, now saying goodbye and thank you for your faithful readership. For personal reasons, I won't be carrying on after today.

A bit of personal history. I was born on August 4, 1950, and loved horses from my earliest consciousness. By age 10 I was clipping the newspapers for racing news. I was a very young fan of Windfields Farm and got on their mailing list. In September, 1962, I clipped a photo of E.P. Taylor with a yearling he was offering for sale at his annual sale. The colt was by Nearctic from Natalma, by Native Dancer, with a white blaze down his face. I had always been a fan of Native Dancer, especially because he was a grey horse. I always liked the horses who had the white markings, so I set out to track the fate of this yearling who was, of course, Northern Dancer.

At age 20, after a year of university, I was diagnosed as being schizophrenic, a diagnosis which was incorrect, but which would not be corrected for 23 years. It seems I am bipolar. This mood disorder is characterized by psychosis and depression extremes. Although I have been hospitalized ten times for psychosis, the worst part of the condition for me was the depression. I had a particularly difficult time from 1979 to 1984. During that time I felt very suicidal and had a lot of that ideation. But, lucky for me, I had the horses to keep me going, especially the ongoing success of Northern Dancer and his tribe. Every week I made the decision to stay around for the next edition of the Blood Horse and its international results, which were full of Northern Dancer stories.

To show my appreciation for this animal helping get me through my roughest patch, every May 27, which is Northern Dancer's actual birthday, I send a dozen red roses in vase to his gravesite in Oshawa, at Windfields. The farm is now being developed into suburban housing. I hope and pray that the graves of the important horses there will be preserved.

To get to the 2007 racing scene portion of this posting, I will cover Red Giant and New Edition. Red Giant is a 3YO chestnut colt by Giant's Causeway from Beyond the Sun, by Kingmambo from Carnet Solaire, 1983, by Sharpen Up from Windfields bred Konafa, by Damascus from Royal Statute, by Northern Dancer. Red Giant won the $60,000 Restoration Stakes, at 8 furlongs for 3YO, run June 17, 2007 at Monmouth Park. We have visited with Royal Statute, a daughter of the Windfields blue hen mare, Queen's Statute, often over the past year.

New Edition is a chestnut daughter, 3YO, of Stormy Atlantic from Sashay Away, by Farma Way from Speak Halory, a winning daughter of Verbatim from Windfields bred Halory, by Halo from Cold Reply, by Northern Dancer from Respond, by Canadian Champ from Reply. In the last few weeks, I did an extended piece on Reply.

The Windfields connection to contemporary runners thus emerges as alive and well. We can wait and see how both these youngsters fare in the remaining stages of their careers. I wish them well. Let's not fail to mention that their respective sires, Giant's Causeway and Stormy Atlantic, are both from the Storm Cat/Windfields Storm Bird/Northern Dancer line.

As long as there is racing, as I hope I have documented over the past weeks and months, there will always be Northern Dancer. And he will lead the way for the Windfields herd, parts of which I have introduced during my time here. I sincerely hope it has been as fun for you as it has been for me. Cheers!