A quarter-century has passed, and my greatest sports hero still is a horse.
In that time, athletes such as Michael Jordan, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, John Elway, Steffi Graf, Wayne Gretzky, Cheryl Miller, Jack Nicklaus and Mia Hamm all have come to stand as shining lights in a sports world increasingly becoming a cosmos littered with the black holes created by collapsing stars.
Secretariat, whose heyday lasted barely five weeks, is the most transcendent sports personality of those 25 years.
He was a hero for his age and the ages. No animal other than Lassie likely captured the hearts and minds of more Americans.
He came along in 1973, when the United States desperately needed a hero, mired as we were in the futile attempt to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese. That effort tore apart not only their country but ours.
We called Secretariat “idol of millions” and “the people’s horse.” In a country that prides itself on illusive and elusive notions of equality, Secretariat did represent all of us, black and white, hawk and dove, railbird and jailbird.
To the antiwar generation that felt so alienated from nearly everything this country represented in 1973, Secretariat was nevertheless a touchstone. To a country whose very foundation was shaken by Watergate, it was as if this handsome animal was an example that success did not have to involve corruption.
Horse racing can be about money and anti-inflammatory drugs and gambling addiction. Secretariat remained above it all as he became the first Triple Crown champion in 25 years. He made national magazine covers that for months had been devoted to the carnage in Southeast Asia. We plainly longed for something bright and beautiful, and he was it.
People who had never been to a racetrack rooted for Secretariat. People who, like most of us, know horse racing only as the Triple Crown were stunned into awareness of the sport’s grace, power and elegance by this animal who had them all.
No horse dominated the Triple Crown races as Secretariat did, finishing with a 31-length victory in the Belmont that broke Gallant Man’s course record by a whopping 2 3/5 seconds. The russet stallion known as Big Red would have broken the track records in all three races had the Preakness clockers not screwed up the timing.
There was an irony in that, because Secretariat’s win in the Preakness included perhaps the most impressive 100 yards a living creature ever has run.
From my vantage point that day, on the press box roof above the first turn at Pimlico, Secretariat loped into the curve last in the six-horse field. He lengthened stride so quickly, going from this () to this ( ) in what seemed a second, that he moved ahead of the pack midway through the turn. Suddenly, I knew what the words “gallop” and “excellence” meant.
In a decade when athletes learned to make news by making noise, Secretariat was a delightful relief to those of us whose business involves dealing with them. He was the strong, silent type–and unfailingly polite, to boot.
Us and them. Two decades later, when a sportswriter’s subjects include too many athletes who cannot spell, define or use courtesy, Secretariat seems a more worthy hero than ever.
“As long as he was alive, his memories had more immediacy,” said his owner, Virginia gentlewoman Helen Chenery, when the horse died Oct. 4, 1989. “The dream is over.”
It will always live in this mind. His big move in the Preakness left such an indelible impression that it immediately has come back, plain as day, every Preakness Saturday of every May since.
A poster of Secretariat hung in my son’s room through his early childhood. It was there not only to entertain a little boy. He learned from the story behind the picture that sometimes an animal best embodies man’s noblest triumphs and aspirations.