by William Nack
Secretariat continued to advance. Into the backstretch he drove past Our Native and Restless Jet. He moved from eighth to sixth, and raced the half in 0:49 1/5. He was still nine lengths behind Shecky Greene, but he cut into the margin as he measured Angle Light and moved to him down the backside. He gained inexorably on him. He ranged to his side nearing the five-eighths pole midway of the backstretch. As he came to swallow Angle Light, Pincay eased Sham past Gold Bag into second behind Shecky Greene.
The Derby began to unfold rapidly at the turn.
Sham reached out for Shecky Greene, shaving his lead from three to two lengths, while Secretariat advanced past Angle Light in bounds at the five-eighths pole. The winner of the Wood Memorial did not resist. Now Turcotte saw Gold Bag and Royal and Regal ahead of him, another flight of two, and beyond them Shecky Greene and Sham. That was all that was left. Secretariat now lay fifth. So far his move had carried him from last to fifth, and it left him only six lengths behind Shecky as they went to the half-mile pole at the far turn. Shecky had a length and a half lead on Sham, racing the six furlongs in 1:11 4/5, almost six twelves in a row. He had not let up a moment since the break. Adams kept sitting tight and nursing him along, trying to spread thin his speed. Secretariat raced the first three-quarters in 1:13, which put him four lengths behind Sham. He had dead aim now, Turcotte felt, and he was still running powerfully beneath him, breathing well at the turn, inhaling and exhaling rhythmically.
Turcotte’s only hope now was that the colt would have something left for the final quarter mile down the lane. If he keeps running like this, Turcotte thought, I won’t have to ask him until the quarter pole.
In front of him, now, Sham began to move to Shecky Greene. The crowd quickened. Pincay decided to wait no longer. He had been lying within quick reach of Shecky since the first turn. Down the backside he had seen Shecky spooking from shadows on the rail, and at the turn he feared the colt might shy from the rail in front of him and force him to check Sham. He did not want to risk losing momentum now. Pincay felt confident of victory. The race had broken right. Sham was running well for him. He had saved ground on the turn; he had moved to Gold Bag and Royal and Regal as he pleased. Sham had done everything Pincay had asked of him. Pincay was on a Cadillac. All that remained in front of him was a sprinter who was dashing through the seventh furlong and already was going out of his depth. Pincay knew that. And now he lay a length and a half away. So Pincay let out a notch, and Sham picked up the beat at once. He cut into Shecky’s lead as they made the turn. In an instant he was at his throat, then head and head with him.
Turcotte saw the move. But still he waited with Secretariat. It was not time, he thought. He could loosen his hold and chirp to the colt and tap him on the shoulder with the stick and move right now to Gold Bag and Royal and Regal. But it was too soon, he thought, too soon to ask him to do more than he had been doing so generously on his own. The timing had to be right. On his left Turcotte heard the crowd sounds building in the distance, making a sound like the sea, and he could hear the drumbeat of the stride and below him see the snap of the forelegs in front. Turcotte pumped his arms in rhythm to the thrust of the colt’s stride. They raced in unison around the bend. Secretariat had been running on his right lead down the backside, and now he switched again, machinelike, to his left lead at the turn. Turcotte kept him on the outside, ready to make his move and sacrifice more ground for open space. He had already given several lengths away. Sham and Shecky pulled to the three-eighths pole, their noses bobbing together, Adams conceding nothing to Pincay. Shecky raced with Sham for more than 100 yards. They battled as a pair. Two lengths behind them Royal and Regal and Gold Bag raced as a team, and two lengths behind them Secretariat was alone in fifth but coming to them now, gathering more speed around the turn, building more momentum, his mane blown back and his forelegs snapping out, and then it all seemed to happen at once, in the rush to the three-eighths pole midway of the turn.
Sham inched away from Shecky Greene, shaking him off and taking the lead for the first time.
Royal and Regal coasted along beside Gold Bag in fourth, and Walter Blum began thinking what a fine spot he was in, racing just off the pace and not yet having asked his horse for speed, and so it began to occur to Blum that he actually had a shot to win his first Kentucky Derby.
As Secretariat came in a rush to Gold Bag, who had just chucked the bit and started drifting back, the red horse drove to the side of Royal and Regal, blowing past him as Blum glanced to the right and saw him go by.
Secretariat now lay third, joining battle. He was still running on his own, faster now than he had run since he left the starting gate, the move having swept him through ever faster quarters. Now they came to the five-sixteenths pole. Adams saw the red horse coming on the outside (“He looked like the Red Ball Express”) and Pincay was now a length in front. He did not see Secretariat coming.
Pincay thought he had won his first Kentucky Derby. Before him stretched the emptiness of the racetrack. He was in front and hand-riding, his whip still uncocked and at his side. As they all came to the five-sixteenths pole, Turcotte looked ahead and saw Sham and thought he was running very easily and wondered for a moment if he could catch him. Already the move had lasted three-quarters of a mile, and in it Secretariat had run every quarter mile faster than the preceding quarter—the first in 0:25 1/5, the second around the clubhouse turn in 0:24, the third down the backside in 0:23 4/5, and now he was rushing through the fourth quarter at the rate of 0:23 2/5. Through it all, Turcotte had remained a figure of patience in a whirl of motion, his actions deliberate, his timing precise, his earliest instincts sound. He had ridden with an insight into the momentum of the race and the way the colt had been responding to it, sensitive to the scope of the move and to the possibilities it implied if it were left alone to run its course. And that was what he had done—he was confident it would leave him close to the lead at the turn for home—and now they were racing past the five-sixteenths pole and he measured Shecky Greene, saw Sham, and decided he had waited long enough. He was hand-riding, pumping on the colt, when he first chirped to him. Nothing happened, so he chirped again. Nothing happened again. Turcotte cocked his stick, turning it up, like the stave of a picador arming himself, and flashed it in front of Secretariat’s right eye, and that was when he felt the surge of power, suddenly, as if there’d been a change of gears.
“He really took off with me,” Turcotte said.
Secretariat moved to Shecky Greene in a rush.
They all swept for home, Sham scooting along the rail, saving ground and banking toward the straight more than a length in front, cutting the corner and pricking his ears. Turcotte came to the corner on the outside, already wide with room to spare between him and Sham, but Turcotte wanted to race down the middle of the racetrack. He wanted more room for error, more space to straighten out the red horse if he bore in, as he had done in the Wood Memorial behind right-handed whipping. He did not want to be lapped on Sham in the stretch. So he swung the red horse wider at the corner, and for a moment the colt seemed to lose momentum. Turcotte raised his stick and lashed him once right-handed.
Secretariat moved to Sham at the top of the lane.
This was what the thousands had been waiting for. They were all on their feet—deafening and growing louder as Secretariat and Sham raced through the top of the straight. Turcotte pumped and pumped again. He was riding hard. He threw all his weight and strength into building the colt’s momentum, driving his arms and torso forward at the forward thrust of Secretariat’s reaching stride. Sham was in front by a length beyond the quarter pole. Pincay had still to draw his stick. He had been hand-riding Sham, and he was confident passing the quarter pole and into the upper stretch, which is where he thought he felt something on his right. He did not hear or see it; rather he felt it there, and so he looked under his right arm and all he recalls seeing were the blue and white checked blinkers and the massed brown of Secretariat’s neck. He was about a half lengt
h away.
Pincay drew his stick.
Secretariat then changed leads for the fourth time in the race, from left back to right at the top of the lane, and now he moved to Sham, picking up momentum again. He cut the margin to a half length and then a neck as they drove to the three-sixteenths pole. Turcotte and Pincay rode furiously, alternately pumping and going to the whip. They switched their sticks from the right to the left hand. They muscled Sham and Secretariat down the stretch, two of America’s strongest riders leaning and lifting together, while the dome of the grandstand rocked with noise at the sight of it. Slowly, digging in relentlessly, Secretariat gained ground on Sham through the upper stretch, and by the three-sixteenths pole he had come to Sham to swallow him and then they were nose and nose. Together they drew away from the field. Churchill Downs vibrated to the spectacle of it.
Down near the finish Eddie Sweat grabbed his khaki hat and waved it as he saw the two colts battling toward him.
“Come on with him, Ronnie! You got ’em! Come on with him, Ronnie! It’s all over now!”
And it almost was. The two raced as a team for 100 yards, between the three-sixteenths pole and the eighth pole. There Secretariat had Sham in trouble and Pincay knew it. He continued using the stick as Turcotte reached and flashed his whip in front of Secretariat’s left eye, warning him not to lug into Sham. Then Turcotte went to hand-riding him again, scrubbing on him. Past the eighth pole Secretariat was still reaching out. Even now, despite the fatigue, his form never deteriorated. Slowly at first, then methodically, he pulled away. He opened a length and then two lengths as they drove to the wire. The red horse was drawing off in the final yards, in command now, when they raced past the finish line.
Secretariat won by two and a half lengths, and as he crossed the wire there was a welling of strong cries, rebel cries from the southern crowd, while all over hands began gesturing to the infield board.
The board was flashing 1:59 2/5, a new Kentucky Derby record by three-fifths of a second. It had been a magnificent performance.
The whole place seemed to erupt at once. In the box seats Penny and Lucien and Jack and Elizabeth grabbed hands and kissed jubilantly, while in the press box two wage slaves ran into one another, colliding and clasping arms, and spun dancing past the mimeograph machine. The Downs entered into a state of ecstatic turmoil, with many horsemen and horseplayers stirred by what they’d seen.
The crowd on the lower level cheered in volleys as Turcotte pulled Secretariat to a stop and started riding him back past the clubhouse. Turcotte was standing high in the saddle, and the clapping followed him as he made his galloping way around the clubhouse turn to the front of the grandstands. For the second year in a row, too, Penny and Lucien descended together toward the winner’s circle, traversing the racetrack and waving to acknowledge the ovation. Eddie Sweat, with his beige hat back on his head, met Secretariat as he had met Riva Ridge the year before, on the racetrack near the gap that led to the winner’s circle.
All Sweat would recall was looking up and seeing Turcotte gesturing above him. By nature Turcotte was not a person given to theatrics, but he reached for his riding helmet and doffed it in his right hand, like a matador, and the crowd rose howling for more. The flourish was eloquent, saying that Secretariat had answered all the questions—he had redeemed himself, as Lucien would say—and that he was all horsemen had been saying he was since Saratoga. Reporters and photographers and television men jostled around him.
“One more time!” the photographers yelled to Turcotte. So he doffed his helmet again. And again.
Around him jockeys steered their horses to the unsaddling area in front of the grandstand. Pincay rode Sham to the mouth of the paddock tunnel and Martin met him there, grabbing the reins. Martin’s face was white and severe, pulled as tight as a mask. Pancho had been right. He had been right all along. Sham was ready to run a tremendous race, the race of his life. Sham, too, had broken the Kentucky Derby record, finishing eight lengths in front of Our Native in 1:59 4/5. He would have won most any other Kentucky Derby. His fate was to be born in the wrong year, the year of Secretariat. Martin spoke briefly to Pincay, who went to the jockeys’ room.
“He ran perfectly,” said Pincay. “He just got tired, I guess. He wasn’t really that tired, he was trying, but you know, the other horse. Maybe next time. When the other horse came up on my horse, my horse gave him a good fight. I switched my stick to the left and I could see he really wanted to come on. But he slowed a little. He showed a little sign of tiredness at the sixteenth pole.”
In the clubhouse Sigmund Sommer appeared dazed. “Secretariat beat us fair and square,” he said.
Down on the racetrack, Secretariat was breathing heavily, and a detailed map of veins and capillaries crisscrossed the rolling landscape of his neck and shoulders. His fingers working excitedly, Sweat unfastened the blinkers and clipped a chain and leather lead shank to the bridle. He took the colt to the gap in the fence leading to the winner’s circle. Prematurely, someone came forward and draped the blanket of roses on Secretariat’s withers, while behind Turcotte saw someone reach out and touch the colt in the flanks. Secretariat jumped at either the touch of the hand or the blanket, driving Sweat into a hedge. In the excitement and confusion of the moment, Sweat felt he was being strangled in the retaining rope being manned by the troops of the National Guard. Extricating himself, though suffering painful rope burns on the back of his neck, Sweat settled Secretariat down quickly.
The Meadow Stable party was collecting in the winner’s circle. Mrs. Carmichael was there, among others, and above them all towered the lanky Hollis Chenery, his face wreathed in a smile reminiscent of his father’s. Turcotte and Sweat took Secretariat into the circle for pictures, and following the ceremonies Turcotte slid off the colt and moved to Penny Tweedy. He leaned forward and kissed her on the right cheek, and she wrapped a long, braceleted arm around his shoulders, drawing him forward. Lucien grabbed Turcotte’s right hand with his right hand and patted it happily with the other. For a moment there it looked like the reunion of a family that hadn’t been together for a long time, and in a way it was.
As Sweat led Secretariat away, returning up the racetrack to the barn for the routine urine and saliva tests, the crowds lining the route started up again as they went by. Sweat returned the salute. Holding the lead shank and checkered blinkers in his right hand, he thrust his left fist high in the air. Even in Kentucky they cheered. Behind him, the victory celebration, as portable as the glasses of champagne in their hands, began ranging all over Churchill Downs; in the hours to come it would move from television cameras at the winner’s circle to the directors’ room and to the press box and thence out to Barn 42. Lucien and Penny came to the box with drinks in their hands, and they appeared gratified yet curiously subdued, as if living a dream that was anticlimax to the nightmare.
“Well, that’s one Bold Ruler that can go a distance,” Penny announced to laughter. “Oh, I feel marvelous, and I have a lot of happy co-owners. They were all saying, ‘Go-go-go-go.’ Lucien’s done a fantastic job getting this horse ready—to withstand the pressure of everything that’s been said since the Wood and just to keep his cool and do his job and get his horse ready and just stick to that one objective. Lucien’s a perfectionist, a man who cares intensely about his work. Yet he’s a very tough fellow inside. He has tremendous strength.” Penny spoke well in public. She understood what newspapermen needed—clarity and color dressed up in complete sentences—and she knew how to say clearly what was on her mind.
“Ronnie rode him beautifully,” she said. “My! He did. Of course Ron took some heat after the Wood, but he didn’t lose the faith. I thought he rode a magnificent race. He just kept his horse out of trouble, saved ground on the first turn, and only got into him when they hooked Sham.”
No, said Lucien, standing with her and Jack Tweedy before the gathering of reporters, the outcome was no surprise to him. “I thought he was going to run good because he trained good for the
race. Naturally you do worry because of the last race. I had more pressure on me than I ever had in my life. Everybody was scaring me to death with that Bold Ruler stuff.” He told reporters he thought the colt had a “good chance” to win the Triple Crown the second time around, and said he thought he would bring a sharper Secretariat to the Preakness Stakes. “I hope to go there and win it this time. I think he’ll be even finer for the Preakness.”
Actually, the race seemed to impress Turcotte more than it did the others in the Meadow Stable. Though he was not saying it publicly, Turcotte believed following the Kentucky Derby that Secretariat was the greatest horse he had ever ridden or seen. Asked by a reporter to compare Secretariat and Riva Ridge, he declined to do so as a matter of personal policy. Most of the good horses Turcotte had ridden—Arts and Letters, Tom Rolfe, Damascus, and Northern Dancer—were standing at the stud, where one day Secretariat would be competing with them for the breeding dollar and the best broodmares in America. A jockey could only stir ill will, and profitlessly so, by proclaiming publicly that one man’s horse was superior to another’s. So he held his opinions on such matters to himself.
“He broke good and dropped back on his own,” Turcotte said at the press conference. “At the first turn I didn’t want to steady him behind those horses so I eased him to the outside. He picked up those horses on his own. He felt from the start as though he was running well enough to win. He did all the running on his own until we challenged Sham. Then I asked him. When I saw Sham at the turn for home, I was concerned because he was running easy and I didn’t know if we could catch him. When I asked him to run there, he really got down to business. They were rolling but I was flying.”