by William Nack
Secretariat retired to stud at America’s most historic commercial thoroughbred nursery, and by the end he had spent most of his career there surrounded by far more accomplished breeding stallions, including three of the most brilliant progenitors in the world—Nijinski II, Danzig, and the fabled Mr. Prospector. Yet Secretariat, first through the exploits of his own racing sons and daughters and then, more emphatically, through his influence as a champion sire of broodmares, ultimately left his enduring mark on the breed as well as the game. By the time the final numbers were in, Secretariat had sired 53 stakes winners out of a total of 663 named foals, 16 crops in all, and they had won nearly $29 million on racecourses throughout the Northern Hemisphere. If his numbers, as a sire of runners, did not measure up to those of the more celebrated Claiborne stallions, the horse certainly had his moments in the world of thoroughbred breeding. Among his offspring were two of the most gifted competitors of the 1980s—one a near–Triple Crown winner, Risen Star, and the other, one of the greatest fillies ever to grace the American turf, Lady’s Secret. In 1988, Risen Star would probably have won the Kentucky Derby had he not been hung out to dry on the final turn, fully eight horses wide, while also trying to close ground behind a lukewarm pace set by the eventual winner, Winning Colors. Risen Star closed to finish third, beaten by just over three lengths. The greatest of Secretariat’s sons came back to win the Preakness, and three weeks later, in the Belmont Stakes—the very scene of his sire’s most memorable performance—Risen Star pounced on Winning Colors as the two sped down the back side, opened up a six-length lead on the turn for home, and then turned up the heat as he galloped home alone to win by a smashing fourteen and three-quarter lengths in 2:26 2/5 seconds. Only Secretariat had done it bigger and faster. Risen Star’s margin of victory was the longest since 1973, and his final clocking was the second fastest one-and-a-half-mile Belmont in history. Risen Star retired after winning eight of eleven races and just over $2 million in purses.
If the Belmont was Risen Star’s defining triumph as a racehorse, then surely the 1986 Breeders’ Cup Distaff, with a $1 million purse and one and a quarter miles to cover, was the race for which that little gray bullet, Lady’s Secret, will always be best known—the race in which she swept right into history. A year earlier, as a three-year-old, Lady’s Secret had finished second in the same race to her stablemate, Life’s Magic, and now she was back to make a run at that coveted prize and claim her right to the highest title in the sport, that of the leading racehorse in the land. She had already won an astonishing seven Grade 1 stakes through the 1986 season—these major races traditionally offer the toughest competition and thus rank as the most important events on the racing calendar—and a victory at Santa Anita would bring her total to eight, giving her a clear shot at the overall championship. The issue was never in question. Sweeping to the lead in that low, pendulumlike stride, the “Iron Lady,” as she had come to be known, opened up five lengths down the back stretch under jockey Pat Day, cruised off the final turn still in front by four, and won ridden out in a gallop by two and a half lengths over Fran’s Valentine. Secretariat’s most capable daughter was subsequently voted the Eclipse Award as the nation’s 1986 Horse of the Year. Lady’s Secret ended her career after winning twenty-five of forty-five races, taking down more than $3 million in purses, and earning the ultimate accolade from no less an authority than veteran Hall of Fame trainer Woody Stephens. “I always thought Gallorette was the greatest race mare I ever saw,” said Woody, recalling the great distaff campaigner of the mid-1940s, “but now I think that Lady’s Secret might have been better.”
Though Secretariat went to stud as the greatest son of Bold Ruler, with expectations that he would be the dominant force in carrying on that prolific tail-male line, he actually left his deepest imprint on the breed not through his male offspring, none of whom has made any significant impression at the stud, but rather through the females that he left behind. (It ultimately fell to the surpassing Seattle Slew, the 1977 Triple Crown champion who descended in tail-male from Bold Ruler through Boldnesian and Bold Reasoning, to keep the line flourishing into the twenty-first century, chiefly through his most accomplished son, A. P. Indy.) In the breeding shed, Secretariat turned out to be far more like his own maternal grandsire, Princequillo, the little World War II orphan from Britain via the Continent who came to these shores in steerage through submarine-infested waters and eventually established himself at Claiborne as one of the nation’s greatest sires of broodmares in history. Just like him, Secretariat quickly proved himself to be one of the leading broodmare sires in America, season after season, with his female offspring coveted at studs around the world. By the fall of 2001, his female offspring had produced four champion racehorses and 139 stakes winners. In 1992, Secretariat was the leading broodmare sire in the nation, his 135 daughters having produced the winners of more purse money, almost $6.7 million, than the daughters sired by any other stallion. (In all, Secretariat mares have produced runners that so far have won upward of $115 million in purses.) In the best of breeding sheds, all royal blood flows together, and 1992 was the season that A. P. Indy—by Seattle Slew out of Weekend Surprise, a daughter of Secretariat—won the Santa Anita Derby, the Belmont Stakes, and America’s richest race, the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Classic. At season’s end, A. P. Indy was named America’s Horse of the Year and retired with a lifetime total of nearly $3 million in earnings.
At the height of his breeding career, A. P. Indy stood at stud for a fee of $150,000, one of the highest in America, but that was not even a third of the money commanded at the time by the hottest of all Kentucky stallions, Storm Cat, whose roots are rich in Secretariat blood. They trace to Secretariat’s daughter, Terlingua, who was probably the fastest two-year-old filly ever sired by Secretariat. Terlingua was out of Crimson Saint, who had spectacular speed for short distances. Trained by D. Wayne Lukas, Terlingua beat the colts in Hollywood Juvenile Championship in 1978, won the Hollywood Lassie Stakes, and ended up winning seven races and $423,896. Retired to the stud, Terlingua was bred to Storm Bird, a son of the great Northern Dancer, and out of that mating, in 1983, she foaled Storm Cat, a precocious two-year-old who won $557,080 in his juvenile year but only one race after that. Sent to the stallion barn at Overbrook Farm, in Lexington, he quickly began siring winners, one after another, and over the ensuing years he emerged as a whirlwind at the stud, a phenomenon so prolific at siring major stakes horses that in the year 2000, his seventeen yearlings offered at public auction sold for $22,468,000—an average of $1,321,641 per horse. In the fall of 2001, by which time Storm Cat had already sired some eighty-five stakes winners, with progeny earnings of more than $64 million, it was announced that his stud fee in 2002 would be set at $500,000, the highest in the industry. At one point, the son of Storm Bird out of Terlingua, by Secretariat, was the most valuable stallion in the world.
In the eyes of breeders, to be sure, Secretariat had a kind of bittersweet career at the stud. “It’s tough to say the word ‘disappointed,’ ” said Edward Bowen, the former editor of The Blood-Horse magazine and long-time observer of the thoroughbred breeding industry, “but you’d have to admit that Secretariat didn’t reach the exalted heights as a stallion that people had hoped for. But I think he was a very good sire of racehorses—a good, solid stallion—and he was and still is an outstanding broodmare sire. There his influence continues.”
Appendix B
Secretariat's Racing Record
Acknowledgments
I want to thank Newsday, especially editor David Laventhol and sports editor Richard Sandler, whose support and understanding, deadline after deadline, were most deeply appreciated; my friend Mike McGrady, who encouraged me throughout the life of this project, from the day he introduced me to publisher Arthur Fields to the day he read and helped edit the final manuscript; and, finally, Arthur Fields.
I also want to thank Sam Kanchuger, the most helpful and well-organized racing publicist in America, whose copious and
instructive files were invaluable; the publisher of The Thoroughbred Record, Arnold Kirkpatrick; Bob Van Wert and Jim Bolus of the Louisville Courier-Journal, for their help on my research into the 1973 Kentucky Derby; typist Virginia Chepak; former Newsday reporter Mike Quinn, for his research; racing writer Steve Cady and columnists Red Smith and Dave Anderson, all of the New York Times, for their support; Amelia Buckley of the Keeneland Library Association; writer Harvey Aronson and designer Corrine McGrady, for their patience; and my parents, for a $600 loan tendered when the ladle was scraping the bottom of the soup bowl.
About the Author
WILLIAM NACK is also the author of My Turf: Horses, Boxers, Blood Money, and the Sporting Life and Ruffian: A Racetrack Romance. As a writer at Sports Illustrated, he won six Eclipse Awards for his coverage of thoroughbred racing. Nack also has contributed to GQ, where he won a seventh Eclipse Award. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Copyright
Secretariat was originally published in 1975 with the title Big Red of Meadow Stable by Arthur Fields Books. And it was also published in 2002 with the title Secretariat: The Making of a Champion by Da Capo Press. Reprinted by arrangement with the author.
Copyright © 1975 William Nack
New Preface © 2010 William Nack
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ISBN: 978-1-4013-2401-8
EPub Edition © 2010 ISBN: 9781401396213
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