by William Nack
The idea was rejected as too risky and not in keeping with his image as a racehorse. Penny was also offered $25,000 by a Las Vegas gambling casino and nightclub for Secretariat to appear twice a day, fifteen minutes each time, in front of a nightclub audience. But that was rejected, too. Then Hazel Park Racetrack, a small oval outside Detroit, offered $25,000 if Secretariat would parade in front of the stands on a weekend—not in a race, just in a walk. But that, also, was turned down as inappropriate. There were many bizarre offers, too, such as the one to merchandise his manure by encapsulating it in transparent plastic discs three inches long and selling the discs as conversation pieces. That was also turned down.
Most of all, though, the nation’s racetracks coveted him as a drawing card. His appeal was tremendous and nationwide, not only among horseplayers but among the laymen who had never seen a race. Hazel Park was but one who wanted to bring him to their grounds. There were others, and among them was Arlington Park in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Secretariat was supposed to rest until the opening of Saratoga in August, according to Penny and Lucien immediately following the Belmont, and in fact was being pointed for the Jim Dandy Stakes for three-year-olds and then the Summer Derby, the one-and-a-quarter-mile Travers Stakes. But the Arlington offer, as it would turn out, was too lucrative to pass up. So Penny opted to take him there.
Arlington offered to put up $125,000 and arrange a match race between Secretariat and Linda’s Chief, Secretariat’s old Sanford rival, who had been running extremely well while avoiding the red horse. It fell through when Linda’s Chief was withdrawn—his trainer, Al Scotti, later said he never wanted to run Linda’s Chief against Secretariat—so Arlington Park hastily rounded up three other spear carriers to meet him going a mile and an eighth on June 30, three weeks after the Belmont Stakes. In a way, it was a symbolic beginning of his career following the Belmont Stakes, a career in which his power as a celebrity and drawing card grew strong enough to affect the course of his career and fortunes as a racehorse.
For the Arlington exhibition, Lucien brought him out of easy training, jammed two quick drills into him, and then shipped him to the Windy City track outside Chicago. Thousands turned out to see him gallop, the day before the race, and more came out to see him run. They were not disappointed. Secretariat, staying twenty feet off the racetrack rail around two turns, casually galloped to a nine-length victory while just missing Damascus’s track record by a fifth of a second. The red horse ran the distance in 1:47. Returned to New York, Secretariat was kept in serious training through July, in preparation for the Whitney Stakes at Saratoga. But he failed to train sharply for it. Then the Phillip Morris Company announced that Secretariat and Riva Ridge would be meeting in a match race September 15, called the Marlboro Cup. The company was putting up the purse of $250,000. Secretariat’s Belmont Stakes was beginning to draw big money to the sport. But all through Secretariat’s training in July, Turcotte kept telling friends privately that the colt was not himself—his workouts through July, in fact, were the least impressive of his entire career. In the week leading to the Whitney, August 4, he was running a slight temperature and his bowels were loose and watery. Then, on July 27, he raced a mile in training in a sensational 1:34 seconds. That day, Turcotte and Frank Tours drove back to Long Island together in Tours’s Cadillac. Turcotte was plainly worried.
“You’re going to think I’m crazy, Frank, but I don’t believe that work,” Turcotte told Tours. “There’s something wrong with that colt. He’s just not himself.”
The pressure was on Laurin and Penny to run Secretariat in the Whitney Stakes. Network television and the New York Racing Association had agreed to televise four races—the $50,000 Whitney, the $250,000 Marlboro Cup, the $100,000 Woodward Stakes, and the $100,000 two-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup—in the hopes that Secretariat would take them one at a time. In anticipation of Secretariat’s arrival, Saratoga draped Main Street in blue and white bunting. It was Secretariat Month in upstate New York. Tourist trade was lively. Four days before the Whitney, Laurin had Turcotte work the colt a half mile, and 5000 persons showed up early in the morning at the racetrack to watch him. Never had so many people come to see a horse work out. Penny was getting letters from New Englanders saying that they were planning their vacations around seeing him in the Whitney. The race itself looked like a soft touch, but it wasn’t. Trainer H. Allen Jerkens had his chestnut Onion ready to run the race of his life, and that was all that was needed to defeat an ailing Secretariat.
Running well out from the rail for most of the trip, Secretariat tracked the pacesetters to the far turn. When Turcotte set him down, he never fired—certainly not as he had fired in the Triple Crown races that spring. He appeared dull, and he ran dully, without the punch he had at Pimlico and Churchill Downs. He and Onion hooked in the stretch, with Secretariat on the rail, but the red horse couldn’t get by him in the drive, and in the final yards Onion pulled away to beat him by a length. The next day Secretariat was running a temperature. He was in and out of training for the rest of August. Secretariat’s veterinarian, Mark Girard, said that he was probably incubating a virus prior to the race.
Laurin had him walk for several days at a time. He began to recover slowly at the end of August, and Laurin worked him for the first time on August 30, sending him five-eighths of a mile in 1:00 3/5. He was not training well.
Time was running out for the Marlboro Cup. Secretariat was to face the finest racehorses in America. The match race had been expanded since the Phillip Morris Company had announced it in July. Not only had Secretariat lost in the Whitney, Riva Ridge had also lost in a turf race at Saratoga. That meant a match race would be between two horses who had both finished second in their last starts. So the two-horse match race was abandoned, and the field was thrown open to all. Now it included Riva Ridge and Key to the Mint, champions Cougar II and Kennedy Road and the winner of the Travers Stakes, Annihilate ’Em, as well as Onion and Secretariat.
Laurin worked Secretariat seven-eighths in 1:24 4/5, an unsatisfactory work at Belmont Park on September 3, and then sent him a mile in 1:37 four days later, still unsatisfactory. Riva Ridge was training more sharply for the Marlboro, and for a while it seemed that Secretariat wouldn’t make it. His last major drill was scheduled for September 12, the Wednesday before the Saturday of the race. There, Laurin put the zinger into him, the sharpener on which he always thrived. With Turcotte aboard, the colt raced five-eighths in 0:57, one of the fastest workouts in New York all year, and galloped out six furlongs in 1:08 4/5, just a fifth of a second off the track record for that distance. That was all Lucien needed.
“I think he’s back,” Lucien said. He returned dancing to the barn. Though elated with the move, Laurin also wished publicly that he had just one more week to get him ready. He had been forced to drive four workouts into him in two weeks. They would have ruined an ordinary horse, but Secretariat improved off of each one and came to the Marlboro almost as fit as he was for the Kentucky Derby. Turcotte knew Secretariat was back, and it was only a question of how far away he was from his peak. Given the choice of riding either Secretariat or Riva Ridge, he chose the red horse.
“I think you picked the wrong horse,” said Penny.
“No. I might have picked the wrong day, but not the wrong horse,” Turcotte replied.
He was the old Secretariat on the day of the Marlboro Cup, though Andrew Beyer would maintain he was not as sharp as he was for any of the Triple Crown races. With Turcotte snugging down the backstretch, with Onion racing on the lead through a quarter mile in 0:22 3/5 and a half mile in 0:45 3/5, jockey Eddie Maple on Riva Ridge just outside of him, Secretariat was bounding along with his neck bowed. As they came to the pole midway of the turn, Riva Ridge drove to the front through six furlongs in a sparkling 1:09 1/5. Onion was still on the rail, Riva Ridge outside of him. Turcotte let out a notch on the reins, and Secretariat rushed to Riva Ridge’s side. Turcotte was ecstatic with the move.
“They were a field of champio
ns and he was just toying with them,” said Turcotte.
Turning for home, ranging on the outside, Turcotte let the red horse roll. Riva Ridge could not resist. Secretariat went by him quickly and pulled away through the lane, opening two lanes at the eighth pole through a mile in a sensational 1:33, by three-fifths of a second the fastest mile ever run at Belmont Park. He opened three and a half lengths at the wire, racing the mile and a eighth in 1:45 2/5, lowering the world’s record by four-fifths of a second.
Riva Ridge was second, two lengths in front of Cougar II.
On went the campaign. Laurin pointed Riva Ridge for the one-and-a-half-mile Woodward Stakes September 29, two weeks later, and he aimed Secretariat for the Man o’ War Stakes at a mile and a half on the turf course at Belmont Park. Obviously preparing Secretariat for the grass race, he sent him over the turf at Belmont Park on September 21 in a leisurely 0:48 3/5 for a half mile, just to let him get used to it. Four days later, still aiming for the Man o’ War on October 8, Laurin let Secretariat go a mile on the grass, this time in 1:38, for Secretariat a casual mile compared with that drill for the Belmont Stakes last June in 1:34 4/5. Then, three days later, Laurin entered both Secretariat and Riva Ridge in the Woodward. The intent was to run Riva Ridge if the track was fast, Secretariat if the track came up sloppy. Riva Ridge could not handle an off track. As fate would have it, it rained the night before the race, and the track was a sea of mud. Laurin then scratched Riva Ridge, and he sent a more vulnerable Secretariat in his place. Secretariat had not been training seriously for the Woodward—he had just gone that easy half mile and an easy mile, both on the grass. More, he was not given the zinger that was a prelude to all his greatest races as a three-year-old. Laurin had broken the pattern. Secretariat had been thrown into the breach to substitute for his stablemate. Trainer Allen Jerkens, who had brought Onion to the Whitney Stakes and was regarded as the most brilliant of all trainers of America, had the four-year-old colt Prove Out ready to run the greatest race of his life.
Secretariat set the pace for most of the way, racing through a half mile in 0:50 and the three-quarters in a casual 1:13 2/5. Jockey Jorge Velasquez, riding Prove Out, stalked Secretariat to the turn for home and then drove to him with a burst of speed that swept them into the lead through the straight. Tiring through the stretch, Secretariat couldn’t catch him, and Prove Out opened a length and a half at the eighth pole and almost five lengths at the wire in 2:25 4/5 for the mile and a half, almost two seconds slower than Secretariat’s track record for the distance.
Secretariat was blowing heavily when he came back to the unsaddling area. “He just got a little tired,” said Turcotte, as he dismounted.
It was the last time the colt would ever lose. Lucien went back to the old pattern for the Man o’ War Stakes. Six days after the Woodward, on the Friday before the Monday of the race, he boosted Turcotte aboard for the zinger. It was one of the fastest workouts ever seen on any turf course.
The splits were startling. He went the opening eighth in 0:11 and the second eighth in 0:11 2/5, giving Secretariat a quarter in 0:22 2/5. They drove another eighth in 0:11 4/5 and another in a sensational 0:10 4/5, giving him a half mile in 0:45, and a final eighth in 0:11 4/5 for five-eighths in 0:56 4/5, only four-fifths off the world’s record for the distance on the grass. He went out the last eighth in 0:12 1/5, giving him three-quarters in 1:09. So Secretariat was ready once again, and this time to race the best grass horse in America at a mile and a half, the four-year-old handicap star Tentam. Secretariat carried 121 pounds, 5 pounds less than the older Tentam.
He made it look easy. Turcotte was coasting on the lead, bounding along through the mile in 1:36, when Tentam started to move to him. Secretariat toyed with Tentam. As they turned for home, through a mile and a quarter in 2:00 flat, Tentam came to Secretariat, but Turcotte let out on the reins and pulled away through the stretch, winning by five lengths and breaking the track record. The pattern of the zinger held again, its final time, when Laurin and Penny decided to ship Secretariat north to Canada for his final start in the Canadian International at one and five-eighths miles, the longest distance he would ever run, on the grass course at Woodbine Race Course. Turcotte worked him five-eighths three days before the race, and Secretariat rushed through it in 0:57 3/5, a full second faster than the track mark, around a plastic fence set out twenty-eight feet from the rail to protect the turf course for the races. Canadian clockers were astonished at the move. They had never seen so fast a run at Woodbine.
It was merely a foreshadowing. In the race itself Secretariat was brilliant. It was run in a cold drizzle on October 28, just eighteen days before the syndication contract required that he be at Claiborne Farm. Only one thing would be missing in the International. Following the spectacular workout on Wednesday, Turcotte returned to New York and learned he had been suspended for careless riding in a race unrelated to Secretariat. The days of the suspension would include the day of the Canadian race. Turcotte’s friend, jockey Eddie Maple, was assigned the mount on Secretariat. If it was any consolation, Turcotte got a job announcing for television at the race.
Secretariat had little trouble handling the International field. He raced Kennedy Road head and head into the far turn, and when the champion drifted out and bumped him going to the bend, he got mad. Maple had to steady him a moment, but once he was free Secretariat bounded away. He opened five lengths quickly on the turn, and by the time he turned for home—with steam puffing from his nostrils—he was in front by twelve. He rolled on under Maple through the stretch, winning by almost seven.
It was over that quickly. The victory in the Canadian International brought to a close a brief but remarkable career which many veterans—Charles Hatton and aging horse-man Hollie Hughes among them—thought greater than Man o’ War’s. Hatton had waited a lifetime for Secretariat, and he’d finally found him. The colt’s career was an affirmation of it. Secretariat was leaving the racetrack with twenty-one career starts in which he finished first sixteen times, was second three times, and third once. He was fourth in his first start, the farthest he had been behind his field.
He had won $1,316,808 in his lifetime, making him the fourth leading money-winning thoroughbred of all time, though he raced only two years. But beyond the statistical sheets and the gross income statements, beyond the track and world records and the imposing margins of victory, he left behind a feeling among those who saw him that they had witnessed a natural phenomenon. He had style, and when he was himself, he made it almost art. Many veteran horsemen, from New York starter George Cassidy to the Racing Form’s chief of clockers, Gene Schwartz, rated him above Man o’ War among the horses they had seen. They were not alone.
“He’s the greatest horse I’ve ever seen,” said Charles Hatton. “He’s the greatest horse that anyone has ever seen. Don’t let anyone kid you. He could do anything, and he could do it better than any horse I ever saw. No question about it in my mind. He should never have been beaten.”
“He’s the fastest horse I’ve ever seen,” said Eddie Arcaro.
“He’s the horse of the century,” said Hollie Hughes. “His performances are superior to any horse I’ve ever seen, and that includes Man o’ War. Secretariat has done far more. Man o’ War didn’t beat older horses except for one, Sir Barton, and he was all wore out and ready for the grave by then. Secretariat is far better than any horse I ever saw. The Belmont? It astounded me. I couldn’t think of anything like that I had ever seen. No one has ever seen anything like that in this century. He was the horse of the century.”
They held a special formal farewell to him at Aqueduct on November 6, a crisp autumn day of bright yellow sun and overcoats drawn up above the necks. Ed Sweat and Charlie Davis, along with Billy Silver, brought him to the Big A that afternoon to parade between the races. Old horseplayers and young girls draped themselves over the paddock fence at Aqueduct and watched and listened to the ceremonies. “Goodbye, Secretariat—We Love You,” said one sign. Sweat led the red hor
se around, and speeches were made. Vanderbilt spoke, and so did Racing Association President Jack Krumpe and Penny Tweedy, who was dressed in a dark fur coat and holding a dozen roses and speaking into a microphone. Her voice echoed throughout the clubhouse and grandstand: “Having a horse like Secretariat is something that you pray might happen to you once in a lifetime, and we’ve loved every minute of it.”
In one way or another, Secretariat touched the lives of many people in many ways, and they were different for it. Penny had become a public figure, and she was on her way to being an ambassador for the sport, a speaker and spokeswoman. As she spoke that afternoon at Aqueduct, her marriage was almost over. Jack Tweedy had changed jobs and moved to California the summer past, following Secretariat’s Belmont Stakes, and Penny stayed east with Secretariat. The days as Jack Tweedy’s housewife and cocktail party companion in Denver were behind her, and she knew it then, though she would not announce the divorce until early 1974.
As they gathered in the winner’s circle, as the speeches were made, Lucien Laurin stood shivering with his hands in his pockets and near tears, pale, bent over, and looking, for the first time, like a man grown suddenly old with his responsibilities. He had endured the most formidable strain of the sport, first with Riva Ridge and then with Secretariat. After forty years on the racetrack—after the years as a jockey fighting weight, after the years of disbarment and then training in the hovels of the sport, after all the years spent building up a practice in New York—he came to the races at the age of sixty and survived. If he had miscalculated in the Wood Memorial, in the Whitney and the Woodward, he did his best and most brilliant work when it mattered, through the Triple Crown, displaying a kind of genius in the weeks before the Belmont Stakes.