A Golden Birthday, for 'A Very Special Horse' · 6:51pm Mar 30th, 2020
Fifty years ago, just ten minutes after midnight, at Christopher Chenery's Meadow Stable in Virginia, an eighteen year old broodmare delivered a foal.
The mare's name was Somethingroyal, and the foal's sire was the renowned stallion Bold Ruler, and the newborn was a prince, by blood, at the very least. The colt would in time go on to become something far greater than a Prince, or even a King. He became, a Hero.
He was a bright chestnut colt with three white socks, right fore and both hind legs, and a small diamond star trailing a narrow blaze down his face. Within minutes the colt had brought himself to his feet. Something unseen within driving him to take the first shaky steps toward what would become his life's passion: running. Although to some, he never really quite ran as much as he 'flew' just a little ways off the ground.
His owner/breeder Penny Tweedy (nee Chenery) 's first impression of the new colt was recorded by a single word in a diary, "Wow".
It took almost two years for the American Jockey Club to approve a registry name for the colt commonly known to his daily handlers simply as 'Red'.
Names like 'Scepter', 'Royal Line', 'Games of Chance', and 'Deo Volente' ('God Willing', in Latin), were all turned down, the name that stuck came from the longtime secretary of Meadow Stable, Elizabeth Ham, who had perviously worked for the Secretariat of the League of Nations.
Sent into training in January of 1972 with Canadian Horseman, Lucien Laurin in Florida, the newly christened 'Secretariat' initially didn't impress. Laurin reporting at one point, that the 'Big Red' colt "Couldn't out run a fat man."
But eventually, something clicked with the colt, and in June of 1972 he was deemed 'Ready to Race'.
Bumped heavily out of the gate and lagging behind before finishing fourth in his first outing, Secretariat rebounded in his second start, again breaking late in what would become his style, he blew by the field to win by six lengths. Paired with Meadow Stable's regular rider Ron Turcotte, in his third start, Secretariat would come to be know for powerful, nigh explosive, outbursts of speed that would see him outpace his rivals on the tract at will it seemed.
Despite his lackluster debut, and a later disqualification to second in another race, Secretariat would go on to claim the Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year as a Two-Year Old, an outstanding feat in itself, but the best was yet to come.
As a Three-Year Old, he not only would become the first horse in a Quarter Century, to complete the American Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing, a feat thought to be nearly impossible at the time, but would do so in a way that would forever set the benchmark for those races.
The 1973 Kentucky Derby, he 'split quarters' running each quarter mile faster than the last, eventually winning in a record time of 1:59-2/5, becoming the first horse to beat the two minute mark for the mile-and-a-quarter race.
Two weeks later, he undertook the Preakness Stakes, winning by two and a half lengths, but a timer malfunction would at the time deny him the race record time. But what no one at the time could forget was seeing the Big Red Horse, trail dead last going into the first turn only to swing out wide and explode in that fashion he did as a two year old, passing the whole of the field in a single furlong and emerging from the turn with the lead. Forensic examination of the race footage would later prove that Secretariat had indeed broken the race record for the 1-3/8 mile race, in 1:53 flat.
But he was far from done. In what is regarded as his masterpiece, Secretariat did the unbelievable three weeks later at Belmont Park for the track's signature namesake race, the Belmont Stakes. Known as 'The Test of the Champion', Secretariat did the unthinkable from the gate, engaging in a speed duel with rival Sham, and between them setting a pace that outstripped the one they'd set in the Kentucky Derby. At one point it seemed to be a Match Race, the two rivals opening over a dozen lengths from the other three horses My Gallant, Twice a Native, and Private Smiles. But when the dust cleared at Big Sandy on that warm June day, Gods and Mortals had been separated, and as Sports Writer, later Secretariat Biographer, Bill Nack put it, "You Believed in Pegasus that day. He was Real."
The Track Record for Belmont had been 2:26-3/5, at the start of the race, at the end it was 2:24 flat, and the margin of victory was 31 lengths, nearly a 20th of a mile.
All three times still stand as records for their respective races, the Belmont time still as a World Record for 1-1/2 miles on a dirt track.
By the end of 1973, Secretariat would be named both top Three-Year Old Dirt, but also as top Three-Year Old Turf Horse, having won both the prestigious Man O' War Stakes and Canadian International, against older more seasoned horses, on the way to claiming his second Horse of the Year title.
On that day Fifty years ago, something had happened, and "A Very Special Horse" entered this world.
"Every once, in a very long while, there comes a horse, a very special horse, a True Born Heir to Pegasus himself, the embodiment of an ancestor more than two centuries his senior, a flash of burnished copper glinting in the sun, who's speed, strength, and charisma capture the public's imagination like no other. Secretariat was that kind of horse, the kind that comes along just once ... in an Eclipse."
Happy 50th Birthday Secretariat, by Bold Ruler o/o Somethingroyal; "Big Red", Triple Crown Champion, Triple Crown Triple Record Holder, Eclipse Champion Dirt and Turf Horse, Twice Horse of the Year, Avatar of Eclipse, and True Born Heir of Pegasus.
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Sir Barton (One Old Racehorse)
Lovely, just a plain lovely posting.
Bless his oversize heart.
OK OK ill watch the movie!