Some of the old-timers, who were familiar with Boston in the post war era, knew of Peter Fuller, the dynamic owner of Dancer’s Image. He was a great boxing enthusiast, the son of the former famous Massachusetts’s Governor, Alvin T. Fuller and the owner of the large Cadillac Agency on Commonwealth Avenue, in Back Bay, Boston, which is now owned by Boston University. Governor Fuller, also had a wonderful summer estate in North Hampton, New Hampshire. The mansion is gone, but the wonderful still gardens remain. We were there a number of years ago!
Fuller loved horses, and he owned Dancer’s Image, a gray horse trained by Lou Cavalaris Jr. and ridden in the Derby by the great jockey Bobby Ussery. Dancer’s Image’s father was Native Dancer, who won the Preakness Stakes, the Belmont Stakes, and was voted the United States Horse of the Year for 1954 and who, in turn, was a son of the 1945 Preakness Stakes winner, Polynesian. Native Dancer, was unquestionably, one of the greatest thoroughbreds ever to run. He was only beaten once in the Kentucky Derby and had a most (if not the greatest post WWII record) remarkable career at stud.
Dancer’s Image was plagued by sore ankles during his career. On the Sunday prior to the 1968 Kentucky Derby, his handlers had a veterinarian give him a dose of phenylbutazone, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) commonly used to relieve inflammation of the joints. At the time, it was illegal for phenylbutazone to be in a horse’s system on race day at Churchill Downs; however, Dancer’s Image’s veterinarian and handlers believed the medication would clear his system in time for the Derby.
On Saturday, May 4, Dancer’s Image won the Kentucky Derby, but was disqualified after traces of phenylbutazone were discovered in the mandatory post-race urinalysis. The disqualification was announced on Tuesday,
Three days after the horse surged from 14 lengths back, weaving through 13 rivals, to win by a length and a half, Churchill Downs ruled that his owner must return the winner’s purse of $122,600. The painkiller Phenylbutazone had been found in the horse’s urine, at a time when Kentucky banned its use on race days. It was the first and only time that a winner has been disqualified from America’s premier horse race.
The story quickly became bigger than even that. Mr. Fuller, a New Englander, and others maintained that he had been singled out for punishment by resentful white Southerners over his support for civil rights. He had recently donated a Dancer’s Image winner’s purse of $77,415 to Coretta Scott King, the widow of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who had been assassinated a month earlier. The year before, Dr. King had disrupted Derby events by demonstrating against housing discrimination in Louisville, the home of Churchill Downs. Mr. Fuller received death threats, Dancer’s Image was derided with a racial epithet around Louisville, and one of the Fuller stables was set on fire. Sports Illustrated termed the episode the year’s biggest sports story.
Dancer’s Image ran in the 1968 Preakness Stakes, finishing third to Forward Pass. However, he was disqualified again and set back to eighth place, this time for bumping the horse Martins Jig. Continued ankle problems resulted in Dancer’s Image being retired after the race.
Fuller and the horse’s handlers filed an appeal of the disqualification, as they believed someone else may have been motivated to give the colt another dose of phenylbutazone. The Kentucky State Racing Commission examined the matter and ordered distribution of the purse with first money to Forward Pass. Fuller took legal action, and in December 1970 a Kentucky Court awarded first-place money to Dancer’s Image. That decision was overturned on appeal in April 1972 by Kentucky’s highest court in Kentucky State Racing Comm’n v. Fuller, 481 S.W.2d 298 (Ky. 1972).
Controversy and speculation still surround the incident, and in 2008 The New York Times called it “the most controversial Kentucky Derby ever”. Forty years after the disqualification, owner Peter Fuller still believed he was a victim of a set-up, due to his being a wealthy civil rights sympathizer from Boston who offended the Kentucky racing aristocracy by donating Dancer’s Image’s $62,000 prize for a previous victory to Coretta Scott King two days after her husband’s murder. Fuller said he had anticipated that someone might interfere with his colt and asked Churchill Downs officials to provide extra security before the race, but they denied the request. As of 2008, the Churchill Downs media guide for the Derby still included the official chart showing Dancer’s Image as the winner.
Legalized in 1974 by the Kentucky Racing Commission, phenylbutazone was so commonly used by 1986 that thirteen of the sixteen entrants in that year’s Kentucky Derby were running on the medication.