Stanley Dancer

Who was Stanley Dancer?

Stanley Franklin Dancer was an American harness racing driver and trainer. He was the only horsemen to drive and train three Triple Crowns in horse racing. In total, he drove 23 Triple Crown winners. He was the first trainer to campaign a horse to $1 million in a career, Cardigan Bay in 1968 and drove the Harness Horse of the Year seven times. During his career, he won over $28 million and 3,781 races and was called by the United States Trotting Association "perhaps the best-known personality in the sport".

Dancer was born in West Windsor Township, New Jersey on July 25, 1927 and grew up on a farm in the New Egypt section of Plumsted Township, New Jersey, living in the area for almost his entire life on a 160-acre farm with a half-mile training track before moving to Pompano Beach, Florida in 1999. He dropped out of school after eighth grade.

He borrowed silks for his first race, driving a horse he had bought for $75 using money he had won from a 4-H Club. He started driving horses at Freehold Raceway in 1945, winning his first race the following year. Dancer started his stable in 1948 with a trotter he had bought using $250 of his wife's college savings. That horse, Candor, took home $12,000 during the following three years.