The Northern Dancer Legacy
Windfields Farm in Ontario is the birthplace of racing great and champion sire Northern Dancer, winner of the 1964 Kentucky Derby, in stakes record time, the Preakness Stakes, and the Queen's Plate. Retired from racing after the 1964 racing season, he went on to an even more brilliant career at stud. The National Thoroughbred Racing Association states that Northern Dancer is "one of the most influential sires in Thoroughbred history," and he is also regarded as the 20th century's best sire of sires.
Led by Northern Dancer, in the 1960s Windfields Farm earned more prize money than any other stable in North American Thoroughbred racing. Windfields bred Northern Dancer's sons Nijinsky, Secreto, and The Minstrel, all of whom won England's most prestigious race, the Epsom Derby.
In 1968 a barn fire at the Maryland division resulted in the death of thirteen horses who had just arrived from the Canadian farm. Included in the horses that died were twelve mares, three of which were in foal to Northern Dancer and one to Nearctic.
Northern Dancer spent most of his years at stud at the Maryland division which also became home to other sires such as Dancer's Image and Assert. A national icon in Canada, Northern Dancer died in 1990 at Windfields' Maryland farm but was returned to his birthplace in Oshawa for burial.
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