His performances that year earned him the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Two-Year-Old Male Horse, and he was considered an early favorite for the ensuing 1963 U.S.
The 1963 edition of the Kentucky Derby, the first leg of the Triple Crown series, saw 120,000 patrons gather at Churchill Downs for a race that featured three Thoroughbred stars.
TIME magazine reported jockey Eddie Arcaro as saying: "I can't remember a Derby creating so much excitement.
When the gate opened, Never Bend quickly took the lead and held it until the eighth pole, when Chateaugay came from sixth place to win by 1¼ lengths.
Never Bend's other progeny included Riverman, a two-time leading sire in France; Triple Bend, which set a world-record time of 119.80 for seven furlongs on dirt in winning the 1972 Los Angeles Handicap; and J. O. Tobin, Champion two-year-old in England and Eclipse Award sprinter in the U.S. at age four, that handed Seattle Slew his first defeat.