A TRUE HERO : Secretariat Captured the Public’s Imagination With His 31-Length Romp in the 1973 Belmont

The film of the 1973 Belmont Stakes is grainy and faded now, but even if you have seen it a hundred times before you can’t help feeling a chill when the big red horse pulls away to a lead of 10 lengths, then 15 lengths, then 20 lengths. Announcer Chick Anderson’s voice captures the emotion of the moment, the sense that history was being made before your eyes: “Secretariat is blazing along! Secretariat is widening now! He is moving like a tremendous machine!”

When Secretariat crossed the wire 31 lengths ahead of his closest pursuer, shattering the track record and completing his sweep of the Triple Crown, his performance was hailed as the greatest in the history of the sport. And when he died Wednesday, the victim of an incurable inflammation in his foot, that opinion still prevailed. No thoroughbred has ever run more brilliantly.

Nor has any racehorse of modern times captured the public’s imagination as Secretariat did.

In the era of Watergate and Vietnam, a time of cynicism and disillusionment, he was a genuine hero. People wanted to believe in him so much that his failures -- his inexcusable defeats, his disappointing performance at stud -- never blemished his image.

His name remains synonymous with excellence, and his death brought sorrow to people who might not have imagined that they could grieve over a 19-year-old horse.

Secretariat’s biographer, Bill Nack, was visiting Claiborne Farm Wednesday, and he said: “People were crying; they were inconsolable. Even people who weren’t big racing fans were touched by his death. The emotions this horse stirred!”

A horse who shows extraordinary talent will commonly be labeled a “freak,” but Secretariat was no freak of nature.

He was the end product of the best American breeding -- a son of the dominant stallion Bold Ruler, who was a son of the great and influential Nasrullah. And he packed these genes into a body that was the perfect running machine.

Charles Hatton, the late columnist for the Daily Racing Form, described to Nack his feelings when he walked into the Saratoga paddock in the summer of 1972 and saw this chestnut 2-year-old:

“You carry an ideal around in your head and boy, I thought, ‘This is it.’ I never saw perfection before. ... The body and the head and the general attitude. I couldn’t believe my eyes, frankly. I’ve made a thing of looking at horses since before the First World War, but I never saw a horse like that.”

And Secretariat was dazzling on the track too.

I have never seen a 2-year-old do so many exciting things, show so many dimensions to his talent. In his first stakes race, the Sanford at Saratoga, he was facing the pro-tem leader of his generation, Linda’s Chief, and was trapped behind a wall of horses while the favorite surged to a seemingly commanding lead. Secretariat lowered his head and bulled his way through -- Hatton wrote that it was like “a fox scattering a barnyard of chickens” -- and then accelerated explosively to catch Linda’s Chief.

At the end of the season he was voted horse of the year; he was syndicated for future stud duty for the astonishing sum of $6.08 million; he stirred hopes that maybe, just maybe, he had a chance to capture the Triple Crown.

No horse had accomplished the feat since Citation in 1948; many racing experts were beginning to doubt that any horse would ever do it again. The 1973 Triple Crown series generated widespread national attention, and Secretariat responded with performances that even the most casual fan could appreciate.

He set a track record in the Kentucky Derby that still stands.

He set a track record in the Preakness but was deprived of it by a malfunctioning electric timer.

He set a track record in the Belmont Stakes that may never be broken.

Before Secretariat came along, Gallant Man’s world record of 2:26 3-5 for 1 1/2 miles was considered the most formidable mark in the sport; it had stood for 17 years. Secretariat demolished it.

He raced head and head with his archrival Sham at a sprinter’s pace -- six furlongs in 1:09 4-5 -- and kept running strongly all the way to the wire, covering the distance in a stunning 2:24 flat. In my system of speed figures, Secretariat earned a rating for the Belmont that no thoroughbred has ever approached. As Hatton wrote, “His only point of reference is himself.”

After that performance, anything Secretariat did was going to be an anticlimax. Although he did deliver other sensational performances, his record was marred by losses to Onion in the Whitney Stakes and to Prove Out in the Woodward Stakes, and those losses undermine his claim to being the best horse of all time. The great ones aren’t supposed to have so many blots on their records.

And his stud career was a disappointment. When Secretariat went to Claiborne Farm, there were hopes that he was going to transform his species. While he did sire many outstanding horses, including Risen Star and Lady’s Secret, he never lived up to the unrealistically high expectations of him.

His failures, however, will fade from memory. But his triumphs -- and his Belmont triumph in particular--will be remembered as long as the sport exists.