Horse Racing Fantasy Community

Origins II

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Why was everyone so sad about his death? What is the Triple Crown? Why did everyone start cheering during that specific highlight, the one where he was so far out in front? What's the big deal about winning a race by such a big margin? Just what was it about that horsethat was so special?
These are but a few of the questions with which I assaulted the old man I inevitably sought out at the Arlington OTB shortly after the short tribute bestowed upon the horse in remembrance not 30 minutes before the first harness race only a few days after his death. He didn't answer those questions first, however. Instead he began his recollection of June 30th, 1973, the day that the horse came to town to compete in the inaugural Arlington Invitational, which would later become The SECRETARIAT Stakes. Mayor Richard J. Daley was so enamored with his presence that he declared it SECRETARIAT Day in Chicago, and only win betting was aloud, and you had two choices: SECRETARIAT, or the rest of the field. Only three other horses joined him that day, one of them My Gallant, who had finished third in the Belmont and had competed in the Kentucky Derby as well.
There was no surprise once the race was run, the old man told me. He broke slow for the first few strides, but then shot to the lead like a bullet. What really stayed in his mind all those years were, he said, the overflow crowd, the electricity in the air, as if the Beatles had come to town in 1964, and the way that the horse stayed far, far off the rail for the entire race, Turcotte not asking him for anything, and yet he still came within a fifth of a second of the track record for a mile and an eighth. The old man was one of the many fans who had lined the infield near the wire to get a look at this juggernaut everyone had come to see. He was 59 years old at the time and had seen many of the greats in his day. War Admiral, Seabiscuit, Whirlaway, Citation, Nashua, Swaps, Northern Dancer, Native Diver, and Round Table, just to name a few. He was actually at the track when Dr. Fager set the still-standing world record time for the mile in 1968, and I could tell that he had a genuine appreciation for all of those horses, but when he talked about SECRETARIAT it was with a reverence, a sense of awe that was absent when he talked about any other horse. I didn't want to interrupt him, for I could tell he was in his own personal time machine as he was telling me of this experience. He told me how he could remember how the grass in the infield smelled and how the crowd erupted when he first set foot on the track.
After telling me about that day, he then started answering, in no particular order, some of the questions I asked earlier. He told me what the Triple Crown was, and how only three year old horses could compete. That, he said, was what made it so difficult to win; a horse had one chance in his life to sweep the Triple Crown. Because coming into 1973 it hadn't been done in a quarter century there was serious talk among racing officials to redesign the series to make it easier to win, and this horse had won each race in strikingly brilliant fashion, yet with each race he did something different, something in styles that, to quote the old man, "....you never, ever saw one horse win with; usually a great horse has one particular style that he imposes on the rest of the field with; Seattle Slew was a great example. He was a great front-runner, and he would figure out a way to get that lead shortly after the break, Dr. Fager even more so. Rarely do you see horses that could win against good competition if they didn't run the kind of race they liked to run. Round Table could do it; he liked to get the lead, but on occasion he could come from far back. With SECRETARIAT, he could come from way back like in the Derby, then he could make a last-to-first move without getting cooked like in the Preakness, and then lead from start to finish going a mile and a half in the Belmont, and do it in record time with each race!"
I could bore you with more details of what this old-timer told me the next few times I was at that OTB, but suffice it to say that I was absolutely hooked by now, not necessarily by just what it was he said, but rather how he said it; it was very clear that he was still, sixteen years after the one and only time he got to see him in person, totally amazed. I didn't realize it then, but that was the beginning of The SECRETARIAT Project. Remember you're free to explore my project to your heart's content; just click here and enjoy http://www.youtube.com/user/gfn02

In the next entry in the series I will endeavor to explain to you exactly why, for me, there is only one music that fits this horse properly. Until then, keep working on your Derby picks for this coming Saturday!

gfn02