The Big Dance

[GEORGE THOMPSON]

This Sunday's Daily News printed a letter from Jav Merced, one of the
Plain People of New York whose letters enliven that paper.  He
predicts "The Yankees should be able to make it to the Big Dance and
win it."  This refers to the World Series.  Later that day, I heard
D. Wayne Lucas, the trainer of race horses, say, in a television
interview during a broadcast of the featured races at Belmont, that
if his horse ran commendably he would send her to the Big Dance,
referring to the Breeders' Cup races this November at a track in
Louisiana.

This is a term I do not remember encountering before.  Are the
horsemen borrowing it from baseball, or is baseball borrowing it from
racing?

GAT