MANALAPAN,
NJ – June 11, 2014 – The famous blue and gold colors of Hall of Fame
driver-trainer Stanley Dancer will be back on the track Friday night, June 13,
2014 at the Meadowlands Racetrack.
Dancer’s
son, Ronald, a former driver-trainer, will don his late father’s colors in an
exhibition race, the 2014 Legislators Pace, facing off against three other
legislators.
Assemblyman
Ron Dancer [R-12th District] will take on Senator Richard Codey
[D-27th District], Assemblyman Ralph Caputo [D-28th
District] and Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande [R-11th District] in
a race for charity. The winner’s charity will receive $1,000 while the
charities for the other three competitors will receive $500 each.
The
one-mile competition will take place between the first and second races.
The legislators will compete in two-seater jog carts with Codey, Caputo and
Casagrande each teamed with one of the Meadowlands’ top drivers. Dancer
will race solo.
“I am coming out of retirement for this race and will be wearing
my dad's silks, which I am borrowing from the New Egypt Historical Museum,
where there is a wing in honor of my dad,” Dancer said. “When I was
racing, I always wore dad's silks, and I am really looking forward to placing
Stanley Dancer's blue and gold silks back on the racetrack.”
Ron Dancer posted more than 400 career driving victories in the
1970s and 1980s before switching careers. He has been a member of the New
Jersey legislature since 2002 and was mayor of Plumsted Township from 1990 to
2011.
Dancer noted that there were a lot of similarities to his current
life as a legislator compared to his life as a horseman, especially in terms of
long hours.
“As a state legislator in New Jersey, you represent about 220,000
constituents residing in your district that want to meet and speak with you
during the day, and you have to be at the State House Capitol for voting
sessions,” he explained. “In the evenings, legislators have events and
speaking engagements to attend. Also, just as in horse racing, both
professions are seven days and nights a week. The weekends are prime time
days and evenings to be at your job.
“Political races are so expensive and, like it is in horse racing,
it costs thousands to prepare and compete in the race with no guarantees on the
results,” he added.
The Dancer family farm, Egyptian Acres, was located in the
Plumsted community of New Egypt. Stanley Dancer campaigned many of the
top horses of the 1960s through 1990s. As a driver, he posted 3,781
career victories for more than $28 million in purses. Stanley Dancer,
voted into the harness racing Hall of Fame in 1969, passed away on September 8,
2005 and was buried in his racing silks in a cemetery that overlooks Freehold
Raceway.
“Dad will be looking down with such a smile to see his still
familiar blue and gold colors back on the racetrack and on his son,” Dancer
mused.
Dancer is racing for the Hornerstown Baptist Church in Upper
Freehold Township, NJ.
by Carol Hodes
