Nice Dancer was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 Thoroughbred

Thoroughbred

The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word thoroughbred is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed...

 racehorse

Horse racing

Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...

. He was from the last Canadian-sired crop of Northern Dancer

Northern Dancer

Northern Dancer was a Canadian-bred Thoroughbred racehorse and the most successful sire of the 20th Century. The National Thoroughbred Racing Association calls him "one of the most influential sires in Thoroughbred history"....

 before the International champion sire was relocated to Windfields Farm

Windfields Farm

Windfields Farm is a six square kilometre thoroughbred horse breeding farm founded by businessman E. P. Taylor in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. The first stable and breeding operation of E. P. Taylor originated with a property near the city of Toronto known as Parkwood Stable when it was owned by...

 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 subsidiary in Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

.

Owned by Tom Morton and Dick Bonnycastle's

Richard A. N. Bonnycastle

Richard Arthur Northwood Bonnycastle is a Canadian businessman who is the former owner and publisher of Harlequin Enterprises and an owner of Thoroughbred racehorses...

 Harlequin Ranches, Nice Dancer was trained by Jerry Lavigne. In his three-year-old season, the colt was ridden primarily by future Canadian and U.S. Hall of Fame jockey, Sandy Hawley

Sandy Hawley

Desmond Sanford "Sandy" Hawley, CM is a Hall of Fame jockey.Sandy Hawley started out as a plumber then later decided to be a jockey. He started his career as a jockey when he was a 17-year-old boy, hotwalking horses at a Toronto racetrack...

. In addition to important stakes races including the Manitoba Derby

Manitoba Derby

The Manitoba Derby is a Canadian Thoroughbred horse race run annually at the beginning of August at Assiniboia Downs in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. A nongraded stakes race for three-year-olds, it is contested on dirt over a distance of 1⅛ miles ....

 at Assiniboia Downs

Assiniboia Downs

Assiniboia Downs is a Canadian horse race track opened in June 1958 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The main track is a six-and-one-half furlong oval....

 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Nice Dancer set a new Woodbine

Woodbine Racetrack

Woodbine Racetrack is a Canadian racetrack for Thoroughbred horse races located at 555 Rexdale Blvd. in the city of Toronto, Ontario. It is the only horseracing track in North America which stages, or is capable of staging, thoroughbred and standardbred horseracing programs on the same day...

 track record for a mile and three sixteenths in winning the inaugural running of the Col. R. S. McLaughlin Handicap

Ontario Derby

The Ontario Derby is a Canadian Thoroughbred horse race run annually at the end of September/early October at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Ontario. A Grade III stakes since 2006, it is open to three-year-old horses. Raced over a distance of 1⅛ miles on Polytrack synthetic dirt, the Ontario Derby...

. He won the third leg of the 1972 Canadian Triple Crown series, the Breeders' Stakes

Breeders' Stakes

The Breeders' Stakes is a Canadian stakes race for Thoroughbred race horses first run in 1889. Since 1959 it has been the third race in the Canadian Triple Crown for three-year-olds...

, a race run on turf

Grass

Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...

 at a distance of 1½ miles (12 furlongs). In the pre Sovereign Award

Sovereign Award

The Sovereign Award is given annually since 1975 by the Jockey Club of Canada to the outstanding horses and people in Canadian Thoroughbred racing.The most prestigious award for horses is Sovereign Horse of the Year....

 era, Nice Dancer is historically viewed as the Canadian Champion 3-Year-Old Male Horse

Sovereign Award for Champion 3-Year-Old Male Horse

The Canadian Champion Three-Year-Old Male Horse is a Canadian Thoroughbred horse racing honor. Created in 1975 by the Jockey Club of Canada, it is part of the Sovereign Awards program and is awarded annually to the top 3-Year-Old male Thoroughbred horse competing in Canada.Past winners:...

 of 1972.

At age four, Nice Dancer won the Dominion Day Handicap

Dominion Day Stakes

The Dominion Day Stakes is a Canadian Thoroughbred horse race run annually in July at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Ontario. A Grade III event offering a purse of $200,000, it is open to horses aged three years and up. The race was run at a distance of 1⅛ miles from its inception until 1983 when...

 and the Canadian Maturity Stakes

Canadian Maturity Stakes

The Canadian Maturity Stakes was a Canadian Thoroughbred horse race run annually in late November at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Ontario. Inaugurated in 1953, the race was restricted to four-year-old horses bred in Canada...

 before being retired to stud

Stud (animal)

A stud animal is a registered animal retained for breeding. The terms for the male of a given animal species usually imply that the animal is entire—that is, not castrated—and therefore capable of siring offspring...

 duty. He stood in Canada from 1974 to 1978 durin g which time he sired seventy-six foals out of which nine became stakes winners. His most notable offspring was Fiddle Dancer Boy

Fiddle Dancer Boy

Fiddle Dancer Boy was a Canadian Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 1981 Queen's Plate, Canada's most prestigious race and North America's oldest annually run stakes race. Bred by prominent Ontario owner/breeder William R. Beasley, he was sired by Nice Dancer, the 1972 Canadian Champion...

, winner of the 1981 Queen's Plate

Queen's Plate

The Queen's Plate is Canada's oldest thoroughbred horse race. It is run at a distance of 1¼ miles for 3-year-old thoroughbred horses foaled in Canada. The race takes place each summer in June or July at Woodbine Racetrack, Etobicoke , Ontario...

. Sent to a breeding farm in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Nice Dancer sired nine more stakes winners before his death at age twenty-eight in 1997. He is the damsire of Glide Path, winner of the 1995 Stockholm Cup International

Stockholm Cup International

The Stockholm Cup International is a Group 3 flat horse race in Sweden which is open to thoroughbreds aged three years or older. It is run at Täby over a distance of 2,400 metres , and it is scheduled to take place each year in September....

, Sweden's

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

most important race.