Secretariat Had the Heart of a Champion, and the Popularity of a Movie Star

By BILL CHRISTINE

June 4, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Not long after the incomparable Secretariat, the victim of a circulatory hoof disease, died on Oct. 4, 1989, a group of research pathologists examined his body on an autopsy table at the University of Kentucky. Almost everybody knew what Secretariat looked like on the outside, but the researchers were curious about what was inside, what made the champion of champions tick.

They found a heart that weighed 22 pounds.

The average horse’s heart weighs 8 1/2 pounds.

“This was a heart completely out of anybody’s league,” pathologist Thomas Swerczek told writer Marianna Haun. “Looking back to what he had done, it was easy to put a connection to it. The heart was what made him able to do what he did. It explained how he was able to do what he did in the Belmont. . . . It would be impossible for a horse with a small heart to do that. . . . We just stood there [when they saw the heart]. We couldn’t believe it. The heart was perfect. There were no problems with it. It was just this huge engine.”

That inexhaustible engine carried Secretariat to a sweep of the Triple Crown 25 years ago. Each one of those races was punctuated by a brilliant versatility that has been unequaled in the history of the series. Jockey Ron Turcotte, who rode Secretariat in all but three of his 21 races, eventually learned that the chestnut colt marched to his own drumbeat, and on any given day that rhythm might be different from the one that went before. In the end, though, Secretariat was all fortissimo.

In the Kentucky Derby, Secretariat started the race in the middle of the pack, then methodically passed horses until there were none ahead of him in the stretch lane. For the final eighth of a mile, Secretariat was running only against the clock, and by the wire the clock had been shattered. His time for the 1 1/4 miles was 1:59 2/5. The Derby record had been two minutes flat, set by Northern Dancer nine years before. The fastest Derby since Secretariat has been Spend A Buck’s 2:00 1/5 in 1985.

Secretariat’s Derby was a tour de force in the way a celebrated diva completes a difficult aria, one measured note at a time. Two weeks later, Secretariat won the Preakness with a clash of cymbals, blowing everyone’s doors off. One second on the clubhouse turn he was in fourth place, more than five lengths from the lead, and in an instant he was flying by other horses, a zephyr against opponents that seemed tied to posts.

“He was just dying to run,” Turcotte said later. “So I said to myself, ‘I ain’t going to choke this horse.’ ”

Secretariat literally broke the clock. Pimlico’s automatic Teletimer caught him in 1:55 for 1 3/16 miles, but several independent clockers, including two from the Daily Racing Form, said that he had run faster. The Racing Form’s clocking of 1:53 2/5 would be a Preakness record, which has been equaled only twice (by Tank’s Prospect and Louis Quatorze) in the ensuing years.

Sham, who had run gallantly against Secretariat in the first two races, finishing second both times, tried to run with Secretariat early in the Belmont, only to finish last in the five-horse field. “Sham might have been a very good horse,” Turcotte said. “We’ll never know, because he came along in the wrong year.”

The 1973 Belmont still raises the hair on the back of the neck. First by seven lengths with a half-mile to go, Secretariat won by a mind-boggling 31 lengths, his time of 2:24 shattering the record of 2:26 3/5, set by Gallant Man 16 years before.

“Secretariat was a running machine,” veteran trainer Harvey Vanier said. “All you had to do was head him the right way and he’d take care of the rest.”

Racing’s first Triple Crown champion since Citation in 1948 was such a national idol that Time and Newsweek pictured him on the covers of their magazines.

“Being the first Triple Crown winner in a long time was a big part of Secretariat’s fame,” said Penny Chenery, who raced the colt for her family’s Meadow Stable. “But there was also a political context that became a factor. Here you had this pure, clean horse, the All-American horse, coming along [during] Nixon and Watergate. The country was looking for something to feel good about, and they embraced Secretariat.”

Hard-pressed to raise money to pay taxes on her father’s estate, Chenery syndicated Secretariat before his 3-year-old season, the investors’ $6.08 million making him the highest-priced horse in racing history.

Secretariat was voted horse of the year as a 2-year-old, but in his third start of 1973, in the Wood Memorial two weeks before the Derby, he ran third as his stablemate, Angle Light, scored a big upset.

As the field reached the wire, Lucien Laurin, the tiny Canadian who trained both horses, turned to Chenery in their Aqueduct box season and said: “Who won?”

“You did,” Chenery said. “But with the wrong horse!”

Secretariat raced with an abscess on his lip, which might have compromised his chances, but Chenery thought that Turcotte rode him with too much confidence.

“Those 32 owners [syndicate members] wanted to retire him right there,” Turcotte said last week. “Right away, because he was by Bold Ruler, and there was a fear that he couldn’t handle the Derby distance.”

Laurin and Chenery prevailed, Secretariat ran in the Derby and Angle Light, owned by Canadian Edwin Whittaker, finished 10th at Churchill Downs.

Secretariat was retired after his 3-year-old season. After the Triple Crown, he was beaten twice more, by the unheralded Onion at Saratoga and by Prove Out at Belmont Park. Both horses were trained by Allen Jerkens, who will be trying to spring another major upset in this year’s Belmont when he runs Limit Out against Real Quiet in New York on Saturday.

Secretariat’s death at Claiborne Farm near Paris, Ky., saddened his legion of fans.

“He reached cult-hero status,” Chenery said. “Long after he went to stud, his fans didn’t give up. They couldn’t seem to get enough of him. His legend goes on, undiminished. But all of us thought that he still hadn’t lived long enough.”

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TRIPLE CROWN WINNERS

May 26, Sir Barton: 1919

May 28, Gallant Fox: 1930

May 29, Omaha: 1935

May 30, War Admiral: 1937

May 31, Whirlaway: 1941

June 1, Count Fleet: 1943

June 2, Assault: 1946

June 3, Citation: 1948

Today, Secretariat: 1973

June 5, Seattle Slew: 1977

June 6, Affirmed: 1978

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1973: THE BREAKDOWN

*--*

Date Race Distance (Time, Margin, Odds, Purse) May 5 Derby 1 1/4 miles (1:59 2/5, 2 1/2 lengths, 3-2, $155,050) May 19 Preakness 1 3/16 miles (1:55, 2 1/2 lengths, 3-10, $129,900) June 9 Belmont 1 1/2 miles (2:24, 31 lengths, 1-10, $90,120)

*--*

THE CHALLENGERS

The top three finishers in the races in 1973 and the $2 mutuel payoffs:

KENTUCKY DERBY

1. Secretariat: $5.00, $3.20, $3.00

2. Sham: $3.20, $3.00

3. Our Native: $4.20

PREAKNESS

1. Secretariat: $2.60, $2.20, $2.10

2. Sham: $2.20, $2.20

3. Our Native: $2.20

BELMONT