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Nijinsky IiThe racehorse Nijinsky II (named after the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky) was a son of Northern Dancer and Flaming Page and a grandson of Nearco. He died in 1992. One of the greatest horses in thoroughbred horse-racing history, he was bred by at E. P. Taylor's famous Windfields Farm in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, and was bought by American minerals industrialist Charles W. Engelhard, Jr. (1917-1971) and his wife Jane Engelhard (1917-2004) at Windfields Farm's annual yearling auction for $84,000. Shipped to Ireland where he was trained by Vincent O'Brien, Nijinsky II became champion two-year-old of both England and Ireland. In 1970, as a three-year-old, after winning the Two Thousand Guineas Stakes and the Epsom Derby, Nijinsky II won the Irish Derby Stakes and then defeated older horses for the first time in Ascot, England's mile and one-half King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes. These victories revealed Nijinsky II and regular jockey Lester Piggott as perhaps the most formidable horse and jockey combination ever seen on a racecourse. Despite a subsequent attack of ringworm, he then went on to win the Doncaster St. Leger, thereby becoming the first horse since Bahram 35 years earlier to complete the English Triple Crown. In his next race, Nijinsky II ran in the world-famous Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, at Longchamp, in Paris, France, where he was sensationally beaten a head by Sassafrs. In his final race, the Champion Stakes, he again finished second, to Lorenzaccio. In the course of his brilliant racing career, he smashed the European earnings record and was syndicated for a world record sum. The much-loved Nijinsky II team also managed to collect the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Team Award in this year. His brilliance lives on in his descendants, who include 1995 Epsom Derby winner Lammtarra.
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