Secretariat is to racing what Babe Ruth is to baseball, what Muhammad Ali is to boxing and what Michael Jordan is to basketball.
Winning the Triple Crown is the mark of an extraordinary racehorse. The way in which Secretariat won the 1973 Triple Crown transcended the sport.
It defined the powerful and handsome chestnut with a star on his forehead and three white stockings as one of America’s greatest competitors of the 20th Century.
His death at age 19 on Oct. 4, 1989, inspired a Tribune editorial that began “Humans have never been able to find words that adequately explain mankind’s age-old love affair with God’s most wondrous beast of burden and beauty–the horse. The one horse who came closest to explaining this mysterious fascination, the great Secretariat, died Wednesday . . .”
Nine years after his death, Secretariat is back in the limelight as thoroughbred racing commemorates the 25th anniversary of his storybook quest for the Triple Crown.
At 5:40 p.m. on June 9, 1973, Secretariat reached the apex of his career. The Tribune story put the fruition of his quest to become the first Triple Crown winner in a quarter-century into its historical context:
“Late this hot and humid afternoon at Belmont Park, a 3-year-old thoroughbred named Secretariat ran what may have been the greatest horse race in history.
“There can be no doubt that this was the greatest performance in the 105 runnings of the Belmont Stakes.
“The clock and the camera proved that beyond any shadow of doubt.
“The clock tells you that Secretariat ran the mile and one-half in 2:24, obliterating the track and race record of 2:26 established by the great Gallant Man in 1957 at the old Belmont.
“The camera shows you that Secretariat crossed the finish line with 31 lengths partitioning him from his nearest pursuer, burying the classic’s previous record margin of 25 lengths, which the immortal Count Fleet inscribed in the record book in 1943.”
Secretariat was in front by seven lengths after a mile, by 20 after 1 1/4 miles and by 28 after 1 3/8 miles. His quarter-mile fractions were :23 3/5, :46 1/5, 1:09 4/5, 1:34 1/5 and 1:59.
“Secretariat is blazing along!” exclaimed Belmont announcer Chic Anderson, describing what was transpiring on the racetrack. “The first three-quarters of a mile in 1:09 4/5. Secretariat is widening now. He’s moving like a tremendous machine!”
But Secretariat wasn’t a machine, and his brilliant career wasn’t a study in invincibility. His vulnerability manifested itself before and after the Belmont. Although he went on to become an accomplished stud–his most notable offspring was 1988 Preakness and Belmont winner Risen Star–his achievements in that endeavor do not compare with his feats as a runner.
Secretariat’s breeder of record was Christopher Chenery. But Chenery was gravely ill and incapacitated when the match between the esteemed sire Bold Ruler and the mare Somethingroyal was made and when their son came into the world at the Chenery family farm in Virginia on March 29, 1970.
Because of the impending inheritance-tax problems, Chenery’s son and two daughters were in a difficult financial situation. Hollis and Margaret favored selling the farm and horses and investing the profits in the stock market. But the third child, Penny, who used the name of her husband, John Tweedy, wanted to perpetuate their father’s dream of breeding thoroughbred champions. The accomplishments of Riva Ridge, the champion 2-year-old of 1971 and the 1972 Kentucky Derby and Belmont winner, swayed the decision in Penny Tweedy’s favor.
“If Riva Ridge hadn’t won the Kentucky Derby, there wouldn’t have been a Secretariat,” she later reminisced.
Jockey Ron Turcotte was Riva Ridge’s traveling companion, and trainer Lucien Laurin wanted him to ride Secretariat when the latter colt made his July 4, 1972, debut in a 5 1/2-furlong maiden race at Aqueduct. But Turcotte had another commitment so Paul Feliciano was in the saddle.
Secretariat had a horrendous trip and finished fourth.
With Turcotte bedridden because of injuries he received in a spill, Feliciano was back in the saddle when Secretariat made his next start July 15, and this time they went to the Aqueduct winner’s circle.
Turcotte’s first trip with Secretariat came in the colt’s next start, July 31, when they swept five-wide for a decisive 7-furlong allowance-race victory at Saratoga.
In working Secretariat, Turcotte had come to the realization that this was a 2-year-old with tremendous potential but that awareness was tempered by the fear that he might be susceptible to injury.
“He was phenomenal,” Turcotte recalled. “He was doing the same things Riva Ridge was doing. The only difference was that Riva Ridge was much lighter on his feet. My only concern was that he (Secretariat) was hitting the ground very hard. I worried that he might not be able to take the pounding.”
That fear never became reality.
“When he was retired (in October 1973) he was getting to be so light on his feet,” Turcotte said. “He was just learning how to run. Believe me when I say, nobody saw the true Secretariat.”
In his first year of racing, Secretariat gave every indication that he was destined to succeed where Riva Ridge had failed and become the first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948. Competing at five tracks, he won seven of his nine races (with the second loss coming on a disqualification). His performances were so powerful that he was voted North America’s Horse of the Year, a rare honor for a 2-year-old. (Colin earned the title in 1907, Native Dancer shared the championship in 1952 and Moccasin shared it in 1965.)
The start of Secretariat’s 3-year-old campaign was delayed because of the financial ramifications of Christopher Chenery’s death Jan. 3, 1973.
In February it was announced that 23-year-old Seth Hancock, who had succeeded his deceased father, the esteemed Bull Hancock, as master of Claiborne Farm, had syndicated Secretariat to stand at stud upon completion of his racing career for a world-record $6.08 million. The amount exceeded by more than $600,000 the previous world-record syndication of Nijinsky II, the 1970 English Triple Crown winner, by Bill Hancock. And the price was predicated on Secretariat’s potential to capture the Triple Crown.
The syndication delay caused Laurin to deviate from the Kentucky Derby prep race itinerary that Riva Ridge had followed the year before. Like Riva Ridge, Secretariat would have three preps but the races would be in New York rather than in Florida and Kentucky. Secretariat was a decisive winner in the Bay Shore and Gotham but had a stunning setback in the Wood Memorial when he finished third behind his stablemate, Angle Light, and Santa Anita Derby winner Sham.
Penny Tweedy was agitated, angry and embarrassed in the wake of this unexpected defeat two weeks before the Kentucky Derby. She felt enmity and bitterness toward Angle Light’s owner, Edwin Whitaker.
“I got a lot of ulcers after the Wood,” Laurin said. “Some of the people in the syndicate didn’t want to run the horse anymore. They wanted to retire him right then and there. People were saying that Secretariat was sore, that I had him standing in ice every day, which wasn’t so.”
But Laurin stuck to his Kentucky Derby game plan.
“I trained him hard,” the trainer continued. “All of his races were big but the Derby was the biggest because if he didn’t win that, he didn’t win the Triple Crown.”
Secretariat won the Derby, defeating Sham by 2 1/2 lengths and racing the 1 1/4 miles in 1:59 2/5, a Churchill Downs record that still stands. He ran each quarter-mile faster than the previous one, starting with a :25 1/5 and finishing with :23 1/5.
“After I won the Derby, I wasn’t worried,” Laurin said. “I had beaten the best 3-year-olds in the country. The Derby was by far the hardest of the three.”
Two weeks later in the Preakness at Pimlico, it was not the earth the meek inherited but the dirt. The first quarter-mile was a study in slow motion and Secretariat was last in the field of six. Turcotte moved his hands on the reins, signaling acceleration. With a mighty burst, Secretariat whizzed from last going into the clubhouse turn to the lead coming out of the turn. The others were unable to respond. Secretariat won by 2 1/2 lengths.
Although Turcotte’s timing was superb, the timing of the 1 3/16-mile race was out of kilter. The teletimer malfunctioned and clocked Secretariat in 1:55. Two Daily Racing Form clockers in different locations recorded his winning time as 1:53 2/5, bettering the track record by 3/5ths of a second. A review of video tapes produced a compromise–an official time of 1:54 2/5. But the controversy continues to this day, and the consensus of those who were there is that the Racing Form had it right.
With Secretariat on the threshold of winning the Triple Crown, he became America’s most famous sports figure, making the cover of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated in the same week.
This adulation called for a command performance in the Belmont–and Secretariat delivered. Sixteen years earlier his father had the lead with a quarter-mile remaining in the Belmont, but in seizing command Bold Ruler spent himself and wound up a distant third behind Gallant Man.
Laurin was very aware of the fate of Bold Ruler and that the stamina of his sons and daughters was suspect. Thus, when the trainer saw the early fractional times, he thought Turcotte had gone mad.
Later Laurin recalled: “I looked at Mrs. Tweedy and I said: `If I had a gun I’d shoot Ronnie! The way that Ronnie is riding this horse, he’s going to drop dead!’ I really did say that.
“But he kept going–faster all the time. My God, what a race!”
“I never was nervous during the Belmont because he was doing it so easily,” Turcotte said. “Until I saw the board I had no idea we were going that fast.”
After the Belmont masterpiece, Secretariat ran in six more races and won four. After paying a June 30 visit to Chicago and again trampling his fellow 3-year-olds in the Arlington Invitational, all of his races were against older horses.
There were mitigating circumstances surrounding both his Aug. 4 second-place finish in the Whitney at Saratoga and his Sept. 29 second in the Woodward at Belmont.
The sauntering style that Secretariat flaunted in the Triple Crown races returned when he switched to the grass for the final two races of his career. He won the Man O’ War by five lengths in 2:24 4/5, setting a Belmont Park turf course record for 1 1/2 miles. And then, with Eddie Maple replacing the suspended Turcotte in the saddle on a wet and raw afternoon at Woodbine, he won the Oct. 28 Canadian International by 6 1/2 lengths in 1 5/8-mile time of 2:41 4/5.
Secretariat’s grass-racing ability makes him unique among the 11 Triple Crown winners. None of the others won major races on the turf.
“I honestly believe Secretariat was 10 to 15 lengths better on the grass,” Turcotte said.
“I have the utmost respect for Citation’s trainer, Jimmy Jones, and Dr. Fager’s trainer, John Nerud, but I’ve seen them quoted as saying Secretariat couldn’t run in the mud. I think they got him confused with Riva Ridge, who would have won the Triple Crown if he hadn’t been fourth in the mud in the Preakness. Secretariat ran one of the best races of his life in the slop in the Laurel Futurity (when he was 2) and he did it again in the slop when he made his first start as a 3-year-old in the Bay Shore.
“Secretariat was a many-dimensional horse. He could run on the lead and he could come from behind. Grass, dirt, slop. He ran great on all three.”
Writing in the 1974 American Racing Manual, Charles Hatton, the inventor of the phrase “The Triple Crown,” put Secretariat’s career into perspective:
“He won 16 of 21 races, beating the best of 50,000 horses in training and assorted world, American and track marks. That is his arithmetic. But a horse’s class is not subject to mathematics. Secretariat was a Superhorse.”