1986: Three-year-old season
Dancing Brave opened his three-year-old campaign with a victory over Faraway Dancer and Mashkour in the Craven Stakes at Newmarket in April. Over the same course and distance two weeks later he started 15/8 favourite against fourteen opponents in the 2000 Guineas. 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. After the race, Starkey was confident that the colt would stay one and a half miles in the Derby, although Harwood was more cautious.
In The Derby a month later Dancing Brave started favourite, despite concerns about his ability to stay the distance of twelve furlongs. 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. He failed to catch the leader Shahrastani finishing second by half a length. His jockey, Greville Starkey, was widely criticised for his tactics, but he has been defended by others, including Harwood, who pointed out that the race was run at a muddling pace and that Starkey could only have won if he had "cut the horse in half", which as the stable jockey he was unwilling to do. Starkey kept the ride for Dancing Brave's next race, Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park. Racing against older horses for the first time he won in "breathtaking style" by four lengths from Triptych and Teleprompter. 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. The Ascot race saw a rematch between Dancing Brave and Shahrastani. Since winning the Derby, Shahrastani had won the Irish Derby by eight lengths and started favourite for the King George. 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. Eddery reported that Dancing Brave idled in front.
After a break, Dancing Brave returned in the Select Stakes at Goodwood Racecourse in September. He tracked the leaders before pulling away in the closing stages to win by ten lengths. On his final European appearance, Dancing Brave was sent overseas for the first time to contest the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp in Paris. Apart from Shardari, Shahrastani and Triptych, the field also included the German champion Acatenango and the French colt Bering, who was unbeaten in four races in 1986. Eddery restrained Dancing Brave in the early stages before switching him to the wide outside to challenge in the straight as the runners spread across the width of the course. With 200m to run he was not in the first ten, but produced an "electrifying burst" to take the lead 50m from the finish and won by a length and a half from Bering 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. Dancing Brave suffered an injury in the race when he was struck in the eye by a clod of turf.
