TITANS OF TURF : Episode 1 – SECRETARIAT
Ten Of The Finest Thoroughbreds, In This Man’s Opinion
by John W. Russell
THE COLTS
To a greater degree than his equine friend, mankind is a capricious animal that will always have widely divergent opinions on any given subject. It is unlikely, therefore, that many people will agree with me on which were the finest horses to race in America over the last 50 years, but I hope you will not find the following 10 — five males and five females — at great odds with your opinion. One criterion for selection was that I had personal knowledge of each. I had the privilege of watching many of the races in which these horses ran and, in some cases, trained horses that ran against them. I make no apology for prejudicial judgment in selecting for this elite group one that I trained, Susan’s Girl; she won three Eclipse Awards. As for the others, I only wish that I could have trained them too.
Episode 1 – SECRETARIAT
To observe Secretariat standing or to watch him move, and especially to watch him race, was a memorable pleasure for anyone so fortunate. It can be reasonably said that there never was an animal that captured the hearts of so many people as did Secretariat. He made the cover or front page of virtually every magazine or newspaper in
Hatton, having lived through the years of such greats as Exterminator and Man o’ War, went on to write: “Impressions of long standing tend to become fixed and presume a prescriptive right not to be questioned. But Secretariat is the most capable horse we ever saw, and geriatrics defeat any thought of seeing his like again.”
The splendid chestnut was regal in every bone, muscle and fiber. He justified every superlative that was attributed to him. Standing 16 hands, one and one-half inches when retired at the age of 3, the copper chestnut was a mass of powerful muscle tipping the scales at 1,555 pounds at the beginning of that year, only to be reduced to 1,154 pounds at the end of a strenuous campaign. Two of his final three races were at a mile and a half with the other being a mile and five-eighths, all run within 30 days, which would account for his loss of weight. But his conformation was as faultless as nature would permit; he was the quintessential horse. Massive of hindquarters coupled to a short back, his length of hip and slope of shoulder stood him over a lot of ground. His forearm and gaskin were as powerful as any I have ever seen, with a masculine, handsome head set upon a powerful neck, and a large eye showing equal strength of character. All of this combined to give him a stride with power and rhythm unlike any other animal on earth.
Voted Horse of the Year for each of the two years that he raced, and the first of only two horses ever to be so honored as a 2-year-old, he shattered either track or world records in more than half of his winning races, including all three of the Triple Crown events. Not only did he shorten the time of so many races, he also won by incredible margins with consummate ease. Due to his daunting speed, horsemen everywhere were skeptical of his stamina at the end of his juvenile year, and wondered if, as a 3-year-old, he would stay at longer distances than a mile. Stay he did. As one race-caller succinctly answered the question, he “stayed like your mother-in-law!”
Although retired at the end of his 3-year-old year, as a measure of his dominance over his peers in the Marlborough Cup at one and a quarter miles, he defeated four older champions carrying less weight than he, and set a new world-record time for the distance. But his racing record needs no embellishment here, it is one of the most remarkable in the annals of racing.
Bred by the Meadow Stud of Christopher T. Chenery in
In an agreement with Ogden Phipps, who owned Bold Ruler at the time, Somethingroyal was bred with a stipulation that she would be covered by this stallion until two foals were produced, one to be owned by Chenery and the other by Phipps. It was decided that by the toss of a coin, the winner should have right of refusal for the first foal. Phipps won the toss but, wishing for a filly, refused the first foal, a colt, which turned out to be Secretariat. When employed by the Phipps family from 1973 through 1978, I had the dubious pleasure of training the next foal from this mating, a filly named The Bride, which was arguably one of the most moderate horses they ever owned.
In another ironic twist of fate, Roger Laurin also was denied the honor of training Secretariat when he accepted the training duties for the Phipps family in 1971, relinquishing the same position with the Meadow Stable, and turning over the yearling Secretariat to his father, Lucian.
Despite these fortunes of racing, the image of Secretariat is indelibly imprinted into the hearts of millions who had the pleasure of being racing enthusiasts at that time, and only the most fortunate will ever see in the next century another to equal or compare with his brilliance.
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