Secretariat

by William Nack

  Frisbees rose and dipped through the late morning, sailing into noon. Radios played rock. Off to the side a group of young men, holding the corners and sides of a blanket, threw a woman ten feet in the air, then fifteen feet, while crowds gathered cheering her higher and higher. A man climbed a flagpole near the center of the infield, and crowds raised their hands and chanted him on and on.

  Beyond the gamboling, meanwhile, greeting customers of Churchill Downs on Derby Day, a woman stood outside a gate and handed out religious tracts: “Bet on a winner. Bet on Jesus.”

  Barn 42 was quiet through the afternoon, quieter than it was the year before, thought Eddie Sweat, who sat on a beach chair outside the barn and waited.

  Lucien and Penny stopped by at 2:40. Laurin went inside the shed and peeked in at Secretariat. The red horse spent most of the afternoon hanging morosely about the back of the stall. Sweat said the colt wanted to be left alone, didn’t want to be bothered with anything, and that was an encouraging sign. Laurin spoke briefly to Eddie, then left in the car again with Penny. At the racetrack, rumors were circulating that both Angle Light and Secretariat were going to be scratched.

  Penny Tweedy and Elizabeth Ham were talking in the box seat section. They were laughing, and Penny seemed more relaxed than she had been all week, as if she’d come to terms with whatever might happen in the ninth. She was greeting friends and smiling handsomely and wearing a white pleated shirtwaist on whose left lapel she wore her mother’s gold pin—a horse and jockey in flight. Penny always wore it for luck. She was in fine spirits, but she didn’t expect Secretariat to win.

  Down the row of seats was Viola Sommer. She hadn’t wanted Sham in the Derby, and her attitude was skeptical, a curious contrast to Pancho’s gusty rhetoric.

  Up the stairs, darting and weaving through the white suits and white bucks, came Lucien Laurin. He was in no mood for conversation now. “He’s coming to the race good,” he said, heading toward the box. “He’s coming to the race as good as the horse last year.” He waved a hand. “I won’t have no excuses. If he gets beat, I won’t have no excuses.”

  Below, in the jockeys’ room, Ron Turcotte lay down on a cot and slept through part of the afternoon. He woke up with a start, his heart pounding, when he heard from another room an announcer calling the Wood Memorial. Churchill Downs was playing it on its closed-circuit television. For a moment Turcotte thought the Derby had been run and that he finished third. Turcotte got up later and sat with a visitor in the jockeys’ lounge. He seemed relaxed and said, “He’ll beat these horses today if he runs his race. You’ll see.” Turcotte returned to his locker and got dressed.

  It was five o’clock. Sweat had been working around Secretariat, brushing him off and getting him ready, fitting on the bridle and checking the blinkers, when the call echoed through the stable area: “All right, bring your horses to the paddock. Bring your horses to the paddock at once for the Derby.”

  Moments later Sham and Secretariat and Angle Light started for the track, between the barns and out the gate and toward the paddock, around the clubhouse turn. From the box seats and the dining room and the ground floor, owners and trainers descended on the paddock. They shook hands, called out names, and waited for the horses. Crowds pressed against the outside fence, television cameras beamed down on the tanbark ring, horses came in down the tunnel from the racetrack one by one, in file.

  “Hey, Frank,” a reporter whispered to him. “Es la hora de la verdad?”

  Pancho looked up. He grinned. His voice was huskier now, more gravelly from the extensive use he’d made of it, and he raised his right hand to his face, as if holding a baton to it, and sang in his Cuban bass:

  When you’re smiling

  Keep on smiling,

  The whole world smiles with you.

  All the horses were in the paddock now. Eddie Sweat was leading Secretariat around the ring and into one of the saddling stalls. Lucien fitted Turcotte’s saddle to Secretariat, drew up the cinch, and fastened it. All was done. The jockeys started moving down the stairs, the cameras following them. They joined the trainers. Turcotte’s expression was severe. Then a stoical Pincay came into the paddock, wearing the green and yellow silks of Sigmund Sommer. He was restless and uneasy, and the same thought kept turning over and over in his mind: “Get position and don’t get in traffic trouble on the turns.”

  Both men were nervous. Pincay approached Martin, whose instructions were terse and to the point: “You know the horse. Lay close to the pace. Don’t be too far off it. Don’t worry about Secretariat. Last time we did we got beat.”

  Turcotte had already thought all those hours about how he was going to ride Secretariat. Many people, horsemen and friends, had given him advice on how to ride this son of Bold Ruler. They advised him to go to the front, they told him to lay second, to lay third. They told him to run with Sham. They told him to come from off the pace. He knew what he would do, had known all along what he would do. Laurin agreed that the wisest plan would be to let Secretariat run his own race through the first part of it. There would be no gunning him through the stretch the first time—no hollering, no chirping, no using the stick to get him rolling early.

  Crossing the paddock, Turcotte saw Laurin and he went directly to him. Lucien had set a lighted cigarette on the stall board next to him, and he was leaning against it when Turcotte joined him there with Secretariat. The cigarette was making a hole in Lucien’s jacket, and Turcotte saw it, “Lucien! You’re burning your jacket.”

  Lucien wiped at the charred hole. He hardly seemed to notice. “You know the horse, Ronnie. Just try to keep clear. Don’t worry about a thing. Ride the race the way it comes up. Use ton propre jugment.”

  The time had come. A paddock official called the order to mount, and Turcotte held his stick in one hand and moved to Secretariat’s left side, raising his left boot behind him at the knee. Laurin reached down, grabbed under the boot, and raised Turcotte up. Lucien patted the boot and said, “Good luck now, Ronnie.”

  They walked in file to the racetrack, Angle Light and Secretariat as the 1 and 1A entries, through the tunnel to the wide open door debouching onto one of the world’s most celebrated bridle paths. Bettors called to them along the way. The horses stepped through the tunnel, one by one emerging into the warm sunlight of the late afternoon. They walked across the racetrack, turned right, and headed down the homestretch past the clubhouse. The colt felt composed to Turcotte in the post parade. He danced sideways in time to the music as the brass band started playing and the thousands came to their feet singing Stephen Foster’s anthem of nostalgia, “My Old Kentucky Home.”

  There were yells, howls, and then applause. The rituals had ended. The horses had turned around in front of the clubhouse and started making their way back through the long stretch, moving clockwise toward the starting gate parked at the turn for home. As Turcotte passed the eighth pole, heading toward the upper stretch, he yelled to the pony boy accompanying him, “Just go alongside of me and follow me whatever I do.”

  Turcotte chirped to Secretariat and sent him into a slow gallop to the upper stretch into the turn. He let Secretariat gallop off around the turn and continue his warm-up to the half-mile pole. Secretariat felt smooth and limber to Turcotte around the turn. At the half-mile pole by the far turn, Ronnie eased the colt to a stop, feeling he had warmed him up enough, and turned around. It was quiet at the far turn. Turcotte glanced to his left, to the infield, and later remembered seeing the bare backs and beards of youth and the thousands of blankets and faces clustering at the rail near the racetrack. These people would see the Derby clearly only as the horses pounded into the far turn, past the half-mile pole, with about 900 yards to go, and they would see the horses make the bend before they lost them in the drive. They and the thousands more had been making Secretariat and Angle Light the 3–2 favorites, with Sham second choice at 5–2, betting a record $3,284,962 on the Derby alone.

  They neared the starting gate, a jungle gym of green and whi
te slats and bars and doors pulled by a tractor. Turcotte eased the red horse to the outside of the track and waited for the loading to begin. All the horses were converging directly behind the gate. One by one the assistant starters took the horses to their stalls—Restless Jet, Angle Light, Warbucks, and Sham. Navajo was loaded in six, then Twice a Prince and Our Native. As they loaded, Twice a Prince suddenly went up and almost over, hanging his front legs over the stall. Turcotte saw it happening. There were shouts. An assistant starter moved to Secretariat, reaching out his hand to take the bridle and lead him into the stall. Turcotte pivoted Secretariat to the left and walked away from the starter. He did not want to stand in the gate while they were trying to unravel Twice a Prince from it. Turcotte walked Secretariat about twenty feet back, then stopped him, and watched the starters work to free the horse. The delay lasted several minutes. The red horse relaxed. When Twice a Prince was on his feet again, Turcotte took Secretariat back toward the gate.

  He reached to his helmet and pulled a pair of plastic goggles over his eyes.

  A starter came to him again, reaching out.

  Secretariat stepped into the starting gate. The doors slammed shut behind him. Locked inside, he pushed forward and threw his head in the air. Adroitly, like a mountain goat, an assistant starter slid in over the bars beside him. He reached for the bridle to hold him. Turcotte yelled, “Take it easy with him. He’s anxious. Handle him easy now.”

  The starter’s hand gently touched the extension of the bit. Feeling the hand, the colt settled down at once.

  The last horse—Gold Bag—moved into the gate on the far outside.

  It was 5:37.

  Turcotte reached down and grabbed a full handful of Secretariat’s mane, holding it to keep his balance at the break, and he bent forward in the fallen stillness.

  Chapter 25

  Secretariat rose on his hind legs from the gate, his forelegs rising and falling once, grappling like pistons on a piece of heavy machinery, while Turcotte clutched the mane and then released it, bouncing to a crouch. Sham had rapped his mouth sharply on the iron bars of the gate, tearing loose two teeth, and within a dozen strides of the barrier he drifted suddenly to the right, as if careening to the taste of blood, and ricocheted off Navajo. Around him seven tons of horses veered through the straight toward the first turn. Hooves walloped at the ground amid stentorian snorts, clods of dirt flying, and at once the crowd came roaring to its feet.

  Turcotte sat quietly at the break. Beneath him he could feel the red horse struggling to set his mass in motion, and he gave him all the time he needed for it, not rushing him a step. Glancing right he saw Shecky Greene take off with Larry Adams for the lead. To the left Pete Anderson settled down on Forego. Secretariat worked to stay with them at the start, digging in as always, but they all outran him from the slip. In a moment he was running last. On the inside, then, a whole wall of horses pulled away, leaving him more than a length behind but giving Turcotte room to maneuver more freely for position. Looking for a spot to settle him in the run for the first turn, Turcotte eased back on the left line, swinging the colt toward the rail, and drifted left to join Warbucks there. In front of them the field of horses raced through the tunnel for the first time, scrambling and sorting themselves out for position. Around him Turcotte could hear the sounds begin to vibrate in the light of the late afternoon, growing rich in intensity, while in the upper stretch he began to sense that all was well with Secretariat again. He was striding fluidly, not climbing but leveling out as he gained speed, and something else, too, that gave him a sudden rush of relief.

  “He was running against the bit. I took a snug hold of him and he took ahold of me, but he was relaxed and not fighting me. I let him go on his own and I was very happy with the way he felt. He was comfortable and so relaxed, so I was very confident in the straight. I knew he was the old Secretariat.”

  The race evolved quickly, without hesitation, through the first eighth past the stands. Shecky Greene raced to the lead, sprinting clear of horses on his left and right. Adams knew that speed was Shecky’s trump, so he was leading with it. He angled Shecky to the rail, crossing the path of ten horses. Sitting folded on the colt, Adams went to work trying to nurse his speed, to save what he could for the last half mile. Behind him Walter Blum sent Royal and Regal dashing from the gate. He broke fast, and at once started tracking Shecky in the run to the turn. Blum was sitting tucked, too, leaning forward this time, and so was Earlie Fires on the impetuous Gold Bag, who cut across the track from Post 13 to range alongside Royal and Regal. LeBlanc sat tight on Angle Light, racing fourth on the rail just inside Blum, while Pincay tracked them all on Sham. They were bunched. Pincay was running in search of position. He had sent Sham fast from the gate, and now he was steadying him in traffic.

  The cavalry charge strung out as they neared the wire. Shecky opened a length and a half on Gold Bag, who was running head and head with Royal and Regal. The traffic suddenly thinned, and now Pincay sent Sham past Angle Light, from fifth to fourth as they raced into the bend. Sham was well placed now, within range of Shecky Greene and lying just off the rail out of trouble. Secretariat was still last. He was more than ten lengths behind Shecky Greene and running head and head with Warbucks. Turcotte thought he was still running effortlessly, his strides measured, his teeth clamped on the bit, running relaxed and in no particular hurry at the moment.

  The crowd was cheering Shecky into the turn, as if he were flying the flag of the Seventh Cavalry. He raced through the opening quarter in 0:23 2/5, keeping them honest behind him, while Sham trailed him by three in 0:24. Farther back, Secretariat was lopping along in 0:25 1/5 for the first 440 yards, averaging thirty-six miles an hour, not much faster than he ran the first quarter in the Wood. Coming to the wire, he drifted into Warbucks, seemed to graze him, and Turcotte heard the voice of Bill Hartack screaming at him: “Hey! Hey! I’m here!”

  Turcotte eased back on the right line. Shecky swept into the clubhouse turn. Up in the box seats, Lucien and Penny were staring at the spectacle as it unfolded below them, at what appeared to be a second act in the horror show of the Wood. His hands set on the railing in front of him, Lucien looked like a man who’d just been sentenced to watch the rest of it. Penny stood horrified, a hand to her face.

  “My God! Not another one of these,” Lucien exclaimed. “I’m getting out of here.”

  “You’ll stay here and face this with me!” Penny said.

  Together they faced the clubhouse turn, where the colt was just beginning his move, if that was the word for it, for it had no definable limits, no distinctive beginning, and no distinctive end. It occurred gradually. Secretariat would race no single quarter mile shading 0:22, as he’d done in the Gotham, deliver up no spectacular cruncher that would power him to the lead. This was finer and rarer than that, a move artistic in scope and conception, relentless in the manner of its execution. And into the turn it began, unspectacularly, with Turcotte sitting chilly. This was what he had been waiting for and now he let it unfold without interference, providing only guidance to the colt. Turcotte had felt Secretariat picking up speed passing the wire. There he had edged past Warbucks into twelfth place. Into the turn he let the colt move to Twice a Prince, who was running wide, slipping inside of him into eleventh place.

  He continued to accelerate around the bend, moving faster and faster as Shecky swept them toward the backstretch. As he went by Twice a Prince, Turcotte saw a flight of three horses directly in front of him—Forego on the rail, Navajo on the extreme outside, My Gallant between them. Turcotte glanced to the rail. It was clogged and full of potential traps, a dangerous place to move past ten horses. He would avoid the rail, he thought, and sacrifice the ground for open space. He had to move somewhere, had to keep the momentum of the run. The flight of three horses was moving too slow, Turcotte thought, too slow for the colt who had been building a tempo and was now moving to their heels. Still snugging him, Turcotte tugged gently on the right line, moving his hands only
slightly, and eased Secretariat outside Navajo. Now he was four horses wide on the turn, losing ground but free of trouble. Now he sat still as stone again. That was all he did, nothing more. He didn’t make a sound, didn’t cock his whip. On they went.

  Secretariat never dropped a beat. Swinging out, he switched leads like a machine, from right to left, and then took off again. He might be awkward leaving the gate, but in full flight Secretariat could move like a fine male dancer, and in the Kentucky Derby he was moving with more grace than Turcotte had ever felt with him before. Gone was the heavy-headedness, the battering at the ground. “It was the first time he ever put everything together—the clumsiness had gone out of him. The Derby was the first time. He seemed to gain the strength to carry himself, and it was like he was flying through the air.” He moved to Navajo with the characteristic way he had, snapping out his forelegs at the knee and folding the ground under him, his hind legs propelling him forward, his forelegs reaching and snapping at the ground.

  He went by Navajo in long bounds. Midway of the turn he charged past the flight of three and headed for the backstretch picking up speed, moving from eleventh to eighth. And Turcotte kept riding laissez faire, letting him move on his own and feeling as he continued to accelerate. “I could feel him picking up momentum, going a little faster around the turn.”

  Ahead now were Restless Jet on the rail and Our Native outside him, forming a second flight of two, and Secretariat had them measured as he swept past Navajo. He went after them in the accelerated drumroll of his stride, staying on the outside and rushing to the flanks of Our Native. He cut his margin to a half length as they raced to the three-quarter pole into the backstretch. Turcotte was struck by the ease with which Secretariat was moving to his horses. “He was going so effortlessly—just picking up horse after horse on the turn.” As Secretariat went to Our Native, Shecky Greene dashed past the three-quarter pole with a half-mile clocking of 0:47 2/5. Breezing by the pole, he was in front by three. Adams sat motionless on him. Behind him Sham stayed close, ranging into third and running head and head for second now with Gold Bag.