Honours
Northern Dancer won the American Eclipse Award as Three-Year Old Male Champion of 1964 and the Sovereign Award for Horse of the Year. In 1965, he became the first horse to ever be voted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame, an honour he held for thirty-one years and now shares with Canadian Equestrian Champion Big Ben (inducted 1996). On its formation, he was part of the first group of inductees into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1976. In 1977, Northern Dancer won three world sires' premiership titles being for the number of international stakes winners, international stakes wins and progeny stake earnings.
He was retired from stud (breeding) on 15 April 1987 at the age of 26. He died in 1990 and is buried at Windfields Farm in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Northern Dancer's remains were brought back to Canada for burial. Windfields Farm has subsequently been abandoned, and Northern Dancer's burial site is not publicly accessible. In 1999, Canada Post honoured the horse with his image placed on a postage stamp. A residential street was named after Northern Dancer on the former site of the Greenwood Race Track in east-end Toronto. There is also a life size bronze statue of the horse outside Woodbine Race Track in northwest Toronto.
During the past forty years, a number of books have been written about Northern Dancer, with the latest two editions coming out in 2006. One, by respected pedigree authority Avalyn Hunter, author of American Classic Pedigrees (1914–2002), recounts how Northern Dancer and his sons have established a royal dynasty that has profoundly dominated the international bloodstock market.
In 2011, The Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame held their Induction Ceremony where Canadian Saxophone Instrumentalist, Matthew James Poulton, performed his tribute song entitled Northern Dancer, from his latest album "Generations". The ceremony included a 50th Anniversary Tribute for Northern Dancer.
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Famous quotes containing the word honours:
“Vain men delight in telling what Honours have been done them, what great Company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess, that these Honours were more than their Due, and such as their Friends would not believe if they had not been told: Whereas a Man truly proud, thinks the greatest Honours below his Merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a Maxim that whoever desires the Character of a proud Man, ought to conceal his Vanity.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
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—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)