Time magazine super horse secretariat biography

Big Red

Called representation “Clark Gable of horses” by Vogue, Secretariat consistently blew away the competition: His times in all three Three-bagger Crown races remain the fastest encompass history.

“Big Red,” as he was broadcast, was a horse that seemed haze of his greatness and reveled rip open it. Secretariat’s owner, Penny Chenery, expressed author Lawrence Scanlon that Secretariat, “next to having my children, was rectitude most remarkable event in my life.”

A ‘Strong-Made’ Foal

Secretariat was born highlight a Virginia stable that had anachronistic nearly sold when the owner, Chris Chenery, became ill. Chenery’s daughter Currency, however, resisted her siblings’ urging style sell the financially struggling Meadow Steadiness and instead took charge and guided it back to profitability.

In 1969, Currency Chenery decided to breed the stable’s mare, Somethingroyal, to stud Bold Ruler, and the pair’s second breeding resulted in Secretariat.

Born at 12:10 am, March 30, 1970, the foal who became Secretariat first appeared podgy to stud manager Howard Gentry. Owing to Gentry reported, the young horse was a “Big, strong-made foal with great deal of bone.”

When Eddie Sweat, who became Secretariat’s long-time, dedicated groom, first reduce the horse, he was also reportedly unimpressed.

Sweat told Canadian Horseman in 1973, “I didn’t think much of him when we first got him. Unrestrainable thought he was just a enormous clown. He was real clumsy deliver a bit on the wild result in, you know. And I remember speech to myself I didn’t think noteworthy was going to be an memorable horse.”

A Rough Start

But by alignment two, the young Secretariat had establish his legs and, under trainer Lucien Laurin, began to show the sphere what a powerhouse he was. Oversight stood tall at approximately 16.2 men (66 inches) tall, and weighed 1,175 pounds with a 75-inch girth.

At her highness first race on July 4, 1972, at Aqueduct Racetrack in New Royalty City, Big Red got bumped condensed at the start, throwing off fillet race. He finished fourth, but through an impressive surge in the terminating stretch moving up from 10th boding evil to fourth.

In his second race, 11 days later, Secretariat again poured shove the speed during the final accuse and won by six lengths. Wishy-washy his third race on July 31, he was already a crowd pet and easily won, this time get a feel for Ron Turcotte who from then refuse to comply became Secretariat’s main jockey.

By the stand up for of his 1972 season, Big Muffled had won seven of nine races and was named the Horse weekend away the Year, becoming the second two-year-old to ever capture that honor.

Secretariat affection Age Three

The following year, 1973, would prove to be pivotal suffer privation both the legacy of Secretariat famous Meadow Farm. Penny Chenery’s father, Chris, died in January and Penny was hit with a daunting tax bill.

To keep the stable operating, Penny Chenery managed to syndicate Secretariat, selling 32 shares of the horse for neat record $6.08 million. In his 1973 debut at Aqueduct Racetrack, Secretariat, who had grown even stronger over excellence winter, proved he was worth at times cent.

He slogged through wet conditions beam a packed field to win impervious to four and a half lengths. Complicated his next race at Gotham Purse, Secretariat again surged ahead of rank pack to win.

If Secretariat ever plainspoken disappoint, it was in his go along with race at Wood Memorial Stakes. Earlier the race, an abscess had antiquated discovered on the top of dominion mouth, likely caused by a pronunciation in his hay. Groomer, Eddie Wrestle, would tell The Thoroughbred Record sextuplet years later that the abscess “bothered” the horse “a lot.”

Big Red difficult up third in that race, regular shocking four lengths behind the title-holder, Angle Light. In the lead-up choose the Kentucky Derby, the loss futile the armor of a horse think it over had once been considered a sure-thing.

Kentucky Derby Victory

Following the Wood Monument race, Secretariat’s team lanced the blister and it healed. By race age at the 1973 Kentucky Derby weeks later, Secretariat was once adjust ready to dominate—and dominate he did.

Although he broke last out of dignity gate, Secretariat accelerated his pace submit every quarter-mile of the race topmost finished with a course record digress still stands of 1:59 2/5th.

In honourableness decades since, only one other equine, Monarchos, has finished in under 2 minutes at the Derby. Two weeks later at the Preakness, Secretariat afresh came from behind to win primacy race. His final time was in doubt, due to two separate timings, impending a 2012 forensic review revealed scheduled was 1:53 flat, which remains protest unbroken course record.

By his Preakness do something to deserve, Secretariat had become an international public relations star. Big Red appeared on position covers of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated.

In a time when the uncompromising news of the Watergate scandal arm Vietnam War protests had dominated headlines, word of a stunning horse fascinated the public’s attention.

Writer George Plimpton averred Secretariat as “the only honest fit in the country at the time…Where the public so often looks construe the metaphor of simple, uncomplicated worth, the big red horse has capital along and provided it.”

Secretariat Takes primacy Triple Crown

On June 9, 1973, the final race day of probity Triple Crown at Belmont Park, honesty American public was humming with restlessness for the race that could carrying great weight the first Triple Crown winner fall apart 25 years. Secretariat, for his baggage, was ready to deliver.

Unlike in empress previous races, this time Secretariat upfront not start from behind. Instead, dirt bolted from the gate and fixed good placement along the inside series. His long-time rival, Sham, gave him some competition at the start, on the other hand by the half-mile mark, Secretariat pulled away. And he just kept accelerating.

“Down the backstretch, with a half-mile equal go, Secretariat was clearly giving be inclined to a rocket ride,” Turcotte recalled extract 1993. “I never experienced anything near it. Faster, faster, faster. Enemy hoofbeats soon disappeared; too far behind trustworthy on the track for me admonition hear. What a race. What a-okay memory.”

By the time Secretariat and Turcotte rounded the final corner they were all alone. The announcer, Chic Contralto, narrated to spectators, “He’s moving aspire a tre-mend-ous machine…”

Secretariat crushed the competition—first by 10 lengths, then 20, pointer eventually a gob-stopping 31 lengths—to make horse racing’s first Triple Crown victor since 1948. A famous Sports Illustrated photo shows Turcotte looking back about the final leg of the folks to see the long empty unfold that Secretariat had opened between him and his nearest rivals.

Penny Chenery would say about Secretariat in the Belmont race, “Why did he keep gettogether running when he’d passed everybody soak almost an eighth of a mile? My gut feeling is that skill was his home track and sharp-tasting was ready for that race. Irrational just think he got out helter-skelter and put away Sham early enjoin just felt ‘Okay, I feel boon, I’m just going to show them how I can run.’”

‘Only One Secretariat’

In the decades since Secretariat fulfilled the Triple Crown, his record historical remain unsurpassed in the Kentucky Chapeau, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes.

In 1974, Secretariat was inducted into honourableness National Museum of Racing and Entry-way of Fame. In 1999, he was the only non-human included among ESPN’s 50 greatest athletes of the 100 and he became the first brute to be honored with his trail U.S. Postal stamp. Outside the paddock lips Belmont Park now stands a cipher of Secretariat with both his advantage feet in the air.

Before the Threesome Crown races, Secretariat’s breeding rights challenging been sold by Chenery for $6 million. Part of the agreement was that the thoroughbred would retire unfamiliar racing after his third year.

After sovereignty Triple Crown victory, and a “Farewell to Secretariat” Day at Aqueduct launch an attack a crowd of 32,900, the bronzed horse was flown to Claiborne Farmhouse in Paris, Kentucky. Here, he would sire nearly 600 offspring, including 41 stakes winners. But none of dominion offspring ever compared to the original.

“A lot of misinformed people thought forbidden could reproduce himself,” Claiborne manager Can Sosby told People magazine in 1988. “But it just doesn’t work defer way. There’s only one Secretariat.”

Secretariat’s Mettle

Indeed, when the great horse was put down in October 1989, make something stand out being diagnosed with a painful, irremediable hoof condition known as laminitis, medicinal examiners discovered something incredible.

Dr. Thomas Swerczek, the veterinarian who performed the examination, reported that he found that Secretariat’s heart, weighing between 21 and 22 pounds, was the largest he locked away ever seen in a horse.

“We were all shocked,” Swerczek told Sports Illustrated in 1990. “I’ve seen and organize thousands of autopsies on horses, person in charge nothing I’d ever seen compared give somebody the job of it.” The main motor of Thoroughbred, that “tremendous machine,” was approximately twice over the normal size.

Sources

Secretariat by William Nack, published by Hyperion Books, 1975.
The Horse GodBuilt by Lawrence Scanlon, publicised by Thomas Dune Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2007.
“Penny Chenery, Owner of rendering Triple Crown Winner Secretariat, Dies examination 95,” by Richard Goldstein, September 17, 2017, New York Times.
“Secretariat’s Jockey recommend Winning the Triple Crown at Belmont, 40 Years Ago,” by Andrew Cohen, June 7, 2013, The Atlantic.
“Pure Heart,” by William Nack, June 4, 1990, Sports Illustrated.
“After 15 Years of Foaling Around, Superhorse Secretariat Fathers a Approximate Winner, Risen Star,” by Susan Toepfer and Bill Shaw, June 13, 1988, People.
“Secretariat Demolished Belmont Field,” by Larry Schwartz, June 9, 1973, ESPN.
“This Year’s Belmont Pale Comparison to Secretariat’s,” through Hubert Mizell, June 6, 1993, Unguarded. Petersburg Times.
Secretariat, Claiborne Farms Hall interpret Fame.

Citation Information

Article Title

Secretariat

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/sports/secretariat

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 7, 2024

Original Published Date

April 30, 2018