'Class Written All Over Him': Guy Harwood Remembers Dancing Brave, 40 Years On From His Dazzling Classic Season

Year in, year out we can appreciate the best horses of each generation but how often are we granted the privilege to witness one whose talent is so immense that his name will echo down the decades? 

Those who made their way to Newmarket's traditional opening meeting 40 years ago likely came away with a favourable impression of Dancing Brave's win in the Craven Stakes but they could hardly have dared to dream of what was to come. For Guy Harwood, however, that dream was already alive, even on that brisk spring day.

“He looked to have class written all over him,” says Harwood simply as he casts his mind back to that golden year.

Now 86, the former trainer still lives in his native Sussex not far from where he masterminded the career of the horse whose brilliance bridged that of Mill Reef and Brigadier Gerard in the 1970s and Frankel and Sea The Stars in the modern era, shading even the decade's other legend, Shergar. 

With an eye every bit as sharp and bright as his mind, Harwood recalls Dancing Brave's career as if it were yesterday. For all the good horses he had through his hands in a training career which spanned 30 years – think Rousillon, Warning, Lear Fan, To-Agori-Mou, Kalaglow – Dancing Brave towers over them all, never to be forgotten. 

The high opinion Harwood had of Prince Khalid Abdullah's colt after his two unbeaten runs at two was backed up by his stable jockey Greville Starkey, one of the most experienced heads in the weighing-room of that time. It is worth bearing in mind that in 1985, Harwood's Coombelands stable also contained Bakharoff, the winner of the Chesham and the William Hill Futurity who topped the European two-year-old classifications.

“He was a May foal, so he wasn't particularly big as a yearling,” Harwood recalls of Dancing Brave's early days with him. 

“He was probably about 14.3hh, and he grew to be 15.3hh during his time here. Because he was a late foal, and I don't train horses hard until they're two years and three months old, he was down at my bottom yard until late June, July. Then he started to get into stronger work, and he looked very impressive.

“I said to my head lad who was looking after the bottom yard, 'What's that horse there?' And he said, 'That's Dancing Brave'. And I asked him to drop him off at the top yard on his way home.”

Dancing Brave's agonising Derby defeat by Shahrastani | Kit Houghton/Getty Images

In an era when the American yearling sales dominated the global bloodstock market, Dancing Brave was chosen by James Delahooke at the Fasig-Tipton August Select Sale – an auction which had already offered up both Rainbow Quest and Rousillon for Prince Khalid. The son of Lyphard with the parrot mouth had been bought for $200,000, which was less than half the average price for his sire's yearlings that season.

“He was James's own selection, and he was just about the best judge of bloodstock there was,” says Harwood. “His sire was one [whose progeny] we tried to buy all the time. As sires get older, people don't think that they're as good as they were, but they are, it's a straight-line graph. Their ability to sire a good horse is just as good from the start of their career to the end. But what happens is that they don't get such good mares. People don't send their mares to older stallions, because they're frightened of infertility.

“And so we used to look very carefully at older stallions with a very good record, because a lot of people didn't buy them because they thought they weren't as good a sire then as they were earlier on, which wasn't right.”

It was mid-October of his juvenile season before Dancing Brave saw a racecourse, but Starkey, described by Harwood as “wonderful judge of horses”, knew immediately what he had. 

“When he won his first race at Sandown, it was a three-horse race, and when Greville got off him he said, 'That will be my Derby ride', even though at the time I had three or four really good two-year-olds,” Harwood remembers. “He was always going for the Guineas, because he was bred to be a miler.”

The racegoers at the Rowley Mile on April 17, 1986 were able to witness Dancing Brave's career begin in earnest. Having not contested a black-type race at two, the colt benefited from Harwood's avowed approach of taking in a Classic trial, with the Craven Stakes sponsored in those days by Charles Heidseck.

“Greville Starkey was bubbling like the sponsor's champagne,” was the verdict of Geoff Lester in the Sporting Life, which was only then beginning its rivalry with the Racing Post, the first edition of which was published just two days before Dancing Brave's three-year-old debut.

Dancing Brave and Greville Starkey surge ahead in the Eclipse | Racingfotos

“We never gallop horses here at home because they've got to go down to the same gallops most days. And if you gallop them, they'll start to worry about going down to the gallops. They always work well within their ability,” Harwood explains.

“I'd rather give them a run before the big race than to try and train them up to the big race. A lot of people did, and very successfully, but I always gave my Guineas horses a run, especially colts.”

Harwood ceased training in 1996, handing over to his daughter Amanda Perrett to focus solely on the family's thriving motor sales business, which he had been running in tandem with the stable. He is still involved in the car business but says almost dismissively, “Cars just get you from A to B. It has always been horses first for me.”

Indeed, in his sitting room with an enviable view of the South Downs, the paintings given prominence are those featuring Harwood's preferred horsepower of Dancing Brave, Lear Fan and Rousillon. 

He continues, “The thing I think about training is that you mustn't blow a horse's mind. Once you've blown a horse's mind, they'll never get it back. They'll always start worrying and sweating.

“Usually good horses are easy to train because they find it very easy. What you do with them at home is meat and drink to them, compared to the others who do the same thing but find it really hard work.

“A good trainer is somebody who trains his horses to look after the temperament and isn't trying to find out how good they are at home. I think horses are better for being brought along quietly. Prince Khalid unfortunately didn't like you to give his horses a quiet run but I like to give a two-year-old a quiet run first time out. Let him find his feet. Other people are very keen to get the horse ready first time.”

Guy Harwood at home in Sussex | Emma Berry

Dancing Brave, who appeared merely to be lolloping along in the Craven, was superior enough to win easily, and the benefit of that prep run was clear only weeks later when he looked altogether more switched on for his dominant 2,000 Guineas victory over Green Desert. Thus ensued the great Derby debate: in the Juddmonte camp, the racing press, and doubtless in pubs up and down the country in those good old days before social media. Would Dancing Brave get the trip at Epsom?

“Dancing Brave will probably stay a mile and a quarter but whether he'll get further is very much open to question,” reasoned pedigree expert Andrew Caulfield in the Sporting Life. Lyphard, a son of Northern Dancer trained by Alec Head, won the Prix Jacques Le Marois and Prix de la Foret, while Dancing Brave's dam Navajo Princess (Drone), a consistent and classy winner of 16 of her 35 starts, on dirt and turf, never struck beyond an extended mile. 

“It was a decision we made because he had a good stride,” says Harwood, whose Coombelands training establishment, which he developed from scratch, was technologically as far ahead of the pack as Dancing Brave had been in the Guineas.

“We looked carefully at the stride of the horse, and the two things that govern the distance a horse will get are his stride and his pedigree. His pedigree said he wouldn't, but the fact that he was a relaxed horse and that he covered a lot of ground with his stride gave us every hope. We didn't know for sure that he would stay, and that was of course something that didn't help Greville in making up his mind how he rode the horse.”

The 1986 Derby is remembered as much, if not more, for the horse who didn't win, rather than for the winner, Shahrastani, who followed Shergar in being the second Derby winner for Harwood's great friend Michael Stoute in partnership with HH Aga Khan IV and Walter Swinburn.

Riding his horse to eke out every scrap of stamina, Starkey had Dancing Brave held up at the rear of the 17 runners but his plan was scuppered by the pace being slowed up mid-race. Swinburn, much handier on Shahrastani, kicked for home two furlongs out and, despite utilising Dancing Brave's devastating turn of foot once  clear in the straight, Starkey's late charge ultimately proved futile. 

Writing in the Racing Post, Michael Tanner, an early clocker before sectional times were readily available, called Dancing Brave's finishing run “remarkable”, having recorded him at 10.36 and 11.80 seconds for the last two furlongs, compared to 11.56 and 12.00 for the winner. 

“From the two-marker, Dancing Brave ran the fastest furlong in a middle-distance raced in my experience,” he said. 

Starkey, who died in 2010, was subjected to heavy criticism in the press. Probably in the pubs, too. Harwood has played the race over and over in his mind in the intervening years but remains loyal to the jockey in whom he placed so much faith. 

“I think that to blame Greville is really unfair,” he says. “You can say that he was too kind to the horse, maybe, but he was such a marvellous judge. I would forgive him anything once. He very seldom got it wrong, whereas other jockeys that have ridden for me wouldn't know whether it's Christmas or bloody Easter.

“It looked as if he'd given the horse too much to do but the race was a funny race. I don't know the exact statistics, but I think that around about the mile marker, they slowed the race up. It was something like a 17-second furlong. The horse needed riding from the back – we knew that. But if you get into a compact field, when it opens up again and you're at the back, it's very difficult to get back into stride.”

Perhaps more philosophical with the passing of time, he adds, “Well, there's not much you can do about it.”

Plenty of dreams have died on the Epsom Downs, never to be resuscitated, but it wasn't long before Dancing Brave breathed new life into the temporarily dashed hopes of those around him. Older rivals were dispatched in a dazzling display in the Coral-Eclipse in which he led home Triptych and Teleprompter, before a rematch with Shahrastani beckoned in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. 

Dispelling any lingering doubts as to his reserves of stamina, Dancing Brave, with Pat Eddery replacing the injured Starkey, put himself firmly in the frame for Horse of the Year honours with another triumph. Shahrastani, who had gone on to an eight-length win in the Irish Derby after Epsom, could this time manage only fourth.

Freshened with a late summer break, Dancing Brave was then tuned up for his major autumn target with a run in the Select Stakes.

Harwood says, “It was a long season for the horse. He started in the Craven then went to the Guineas, Derby, the Eclipse, King George. Then he had a prep race at Goodwood. Again, I like prep races rather than galloping. The prep race before the Arc was really comforting. I was very confident that I had the horse at his absolute supreme best for the Arc, he was in tremendous shape. And so it proved, fortunately.”

Seldom has there been a better Arc line-up than that which was assembled in 1986 and included Prix du Jockey Club winner Bering, Derby and Irish Derby winner Shahrastani, German Horse of the Year Acatenango, and the top mares Darara and Triptych. Eddery, who had by now become a permanent replacement for Starkey, produced Dancing Brave down the outside of the 15-strong field to deliver his most captivating victory in a new record time.

“Horse of the century,” proclaimed Claude Duval in The Sun, while The Times elected to promote Dancing Brave and his trainer to the front page, describing his victory in Paris as “electrifying”.

“There was a terrific number of people in the English bar at Longchamp,” Harwood remembers with a grin. “It was a special day. Obviously, the Arc was the pinnacle. It would be churlish of me if I said anything different to that, but every race up to that was really great.”

There was to be one last roll of the dice for Dancing Brave, with his connections opting for an ambitious raid on the third Breeders' Cup meeting. Having started at Hollywood Park in 1984, the championship event had returned to California to be staged at Santa Anita for the first time. Long before it had become routine to travel top horses internationally, this final stop after a lengthy journey of a season proved to be one too many. For only the second time in his life, Dancing Brave tasted defeat, finishing fourth in the Breeders' Cup Turf behind fellow Lyphard colt Manila, Theatrical and Estrapade.

“He was dehydrated when he got there and I could never get him back to his right racing weight in the time I had,” Harwood recalls. “We debated whether we should run him or not. I think the Arc had taken quite a lot out of him. In hindsight, I just thought that he could do anything. Perhaps it would have been better to have called it a day after the Arc but obviously the temptation of going for the Breeders' Cup was tremendous.”

Harwood, who credits Vincent O'Brien as having been an important mentor in his training career, including prompting him to become the first person in Britain to instal an all-weather gallop, insists that Dancing Brave was simply easy to train.

“He always ate his food, didn't have any health problems. Physically, he was always fit. He never had any limb troubles. So it was a pleasure to train him,” he says. 

The one thing that rankles is the revision of Dancing Brave's official rating. At the end of 1986, he was given a mark of 141, the highest ever awarded in the International Classifications. In 2013, the ratings were recalibrated and Dancing Brave was demoted to 138, making him the second-best horse after Frankel, who was given a rating of 140 following his three unbeaten seasons, also in the livery of Prince Khalid Abdullah.

“They had the bloody nerve some years later to bring him down,” Harwood says, still offended on behalf of his great colt. 

“That was the most extraordinarily terrible thing. You can say another horse is as good, that's fine, but to take one champion down against another is not cricket.

“He certainly deserved to be up there with any of the real champions of the decade. There are some other horses that were very, very, good but the great thing about Dancing Brave was he could win at any distance.

“And he's the one horse that's kept me in the frame, some 40 years later.”

In tomorrow's TDN: Dancing Brave at stud