Stanley Dancer, who died yesterday in Pompano Beach, Fla., at 78, was a tough-as-nails harness driver who dominated the marquee races during the sport’s glory years of the 1950s through the 1970s.

In a career that spanned 50 years, Dancer was the only horseman – thoroughbred or standardbred – to drive and train three Triple Crown winners. He drove winners in 23 Triple Crown races, a record that held for 20 years.

For his career, he won 3,781 races and had total earnings in excess of $28 million. Dancer stood above all others in his sport during an era when harness racing drew crowds of 50,000 to Roosevelt Raceway and Yonkers Raceway.

His celebrity, however, extended beyond the track. He was a White House guest of President Johnson in 1968, the same year Sports Illustrated featured him on its cover. He beat boxer Joe Frazier in a home run-hitting contest at Philadelphia’s Connie Mack Stadium, and appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” He flew his own plane and helicopter (eventually crashing both) and counted Yankees stars Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle among his friends.

In 1964, Dancer became harness racing’s first driver to earn more than $1 million in a season. He also drove the first horse to earn more than $1 million, Cardigan Bay. Seven times his horses won Horse of the Year honors, another record.

Dancer won his first Triple Crown in 1968 with three-time Horse of the Year Nevele Pride, and won again with Most Happy Fella in 1970 and Super Bowl in 1972. But some consider his 1983 Hambletonian, the sport’s most prestigious race, his defining moment.

Dancer’s Crown, a heavy favorite, had died of an intestinal ailment less than a month before the race, forcing Dancer to race the filly Duenna. With two strong trips, Duenna defeated the colts to give Dancer his fourth and final Hambletonian victory.

Dancer, born in West Windsor, N.J., was the son of a potato farmer and won his first race two months before his 18th birthday at Freehold Raceway.

By most accounts, he withstood 32 spills during his career. In 1973, he underwent spinal surgery to repair a fractured vertebra that stemmed from an accident nearly 20 years earlier, and had a heart attack during the operation.

He began training again four months later, and continued for more than 20 years, winning his final race in the New Jersey Sires Stakes at Garden State Park in 1995. He stabled more than 100 horses at his farm in New Egypt, N.J.

His brothers – Harold, James, and Vernon, who died last week – also raced, as did their sons and Dancer’s son, Ronald. Donald Dancer, son of Vernon, was one of the sport’s top drivers in the late 1970s.

Dancer did not fully retire from racing until the mid-1990s, when multiple operations for back injuries left him with virtually no natural bone in his neck.

The funeral is scheduled for Tuesday in Freehold. Afterward, a hearse will drive Dancer’s casket around Freehold Raceway for “one last mile,” said Steve Wolf, a spokesman for Pompano Park Harness Track in Florida, where Dancer wintered for about 30 years.