[3] Dancing Brave was sired by Lyphard out of Navajo Princess, a mare who won sixteen races including the Molly Pitcher Handicap.

[3] Dancing Brave made his first racecourse appearance in the one-mile Dorking Stakes at Sandown in which he started odds-on favourite against three opponents.

In the Soham House Stakes at Newmarket, Dancing Brave again started favourite after reports that he had been performing better at home than the stable's William Hill Futurity winner Bakharoff.

Despite never having contested a Group Race and being rated eleven pounds below the top-rated Bakharoff in the International Classification, he was made 10/1 winter favourite for the following year's 2000 Guineas.

[7] Dancing Brave opened his three-year-old campaign with a victory over Faraway Dancer and Mashkour[8] in the Craven Stakes at Newmarket in April.

Ridden by Greville Starkey, he quickened in the closing stages of a slowly run race to win by three lengths from Green Desert and Huntingdale.

Starkey employed exaggerated waiting tactics and Dancing Brave was close to last place entering the home straight.

Switched to the outside to make his challenge, Dancing Brave accelerated in the last quarter mile, being clocked at 10.3 seconds for the penultimate furlong.

However, when Starkey was injured and unable to ride the horse in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot he was replaced by Pat Eddery who became the preferred choice in the colt's remaining races.

Eddery produced Dancing Brave's run earlier than usual, taking him into the lead over a furlong from home and the colt had to be ridden out to hold off Shardari by three-quarters of a length, with Triptych third, Shahrastani fourth and Petoski fifth.

With 200m to run he was not in the first ten, but produced an "electrifying burst"[5] to take the lead 50m from the finish and won by a length and a half from Bering[13] in a race record time of 2:27.7.

On his final appearance was then sent to California to contest the Breeders' Cup Turf at Santa Anita Park but failed to reproduce his best form, finishing fourth behind Manila.

[1] These are the official ratings as recognised by the organised racing bodies in Great Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Austria.