Posted on 06/09/2021 6:49:31 PM PDT by ameribbean expat
Flag in the breeze, Secretariat pulls away, then he blasts off into history.
https://youtu.be/V18ui3Rtjz4
LOL, no problem...the focus has being worming all about...:)
Ahh, I miss riding. Used to have a bay myself. Awesome jumper.
Well I grew up with a copy of Amicks Man o War over the mantle...it had been at my paternal grandpas pre WBTS farm between Jackson and Vicksburg Mississippi
He raised for show and stud ...Walkers and Saddlebreds and tried appaloosas (difficult but beautiful horse.....wish he’d been raising them when Bev Doolittle paintings took off and prices on them went nuts)
One can argue every variable known to man ....by that measure we should include Kincsem and Citation
Man o War was undeniably a more productive sire
Man o Wars owner deserves GOAT owner
Entered WWI at age 65
Stud
Get it..lol...I kill my self
Great story, rlmorel.
I grew up on a farm, around horses, but the age of motorcycles was dawning and most farmers were switching from horses to Honda 70’s or 90’s or ToteGotes (sp?) for checking fences and switching irrigation sets and such.
Never really got into the horse thing, but a couple of my sisters did. I know horses are quite intelligent, have pronounced personalities and are naturally social. But not much beyond that.
Milks a lot of of one race? Quite a few chinks? Agree to disagree on that one.
His records for all three Triple Crown races still stand after all these years.
He wasn’t perfect, nope. He lost the Wood Memorial and had an abscess in his mouth. Not only was he in pain, that infection was raging in his system. No real good reasons for losses in the Woodward and Whitney.
He set a world record for 1 1/8 miles in the inaugural Marlboro Cup.
In addition to his record-setting races on dirt, he won two turf races, including beating a world-record holder in the Man o’War. There aren’t too many horses who can run equally well on both surfaces.
Pretty cute.
The Amick’s I was only somewhat aware of - I know the piece but did not know an artist.
My sister (RIP) bought me a big portrait of MOW by Helen Hayes (LOL), with latter-day groom Will Harbut. Bonus of a couple sketches of him racing in the corners of the matte. House-warming gift.
You’re correct about the details. I have lots of opinions after arguing and looking over factoids for years now. I think Sec is overrated (but not too much - he’s still tops), but the most overrated racer ever is Ruffian, and possibly Kincsem too. ;-)
The abscess in nonsense. Another Bill Nack fantasy.
At least as far as timing. There was a YouTube film of the vet at Churchill talking how he found that abscess Tuesday after the Wood - no one found it on Wood day. AND more telling is NO PUBLICATION PRINTED ABOUT AN ABSCESS, likely for a year (my ‘74 Racing Form Hatton article mentions it). Look up Sports Ill and DRF all the way through summer ‘73, you will find “it’s a mystery why he lost the Wood”.
Nack is behind a lot of nonsense especially with Secretariat - he’s a schoolgirl with him. Used to be people called not only his book on Sec “the bible” but ALSO Raymond Wolfe - which is a GREAT book with wonderful photos and FACTS/data, not poetic prose. NOT ONCE does the Wolfe book mention any abscess.
I’m glad you don’t see the Woodward and Whitney as well excused - like Hatton above, who complains of a mysterious fever and “not being trained” because Riva Ridge was scratched from the Woodward for rain - nonsense. If you enter a horse, you better train it reasonably.
But the abscess if you start looking into it, was never mentioned for almost a year or so (I had an on-line fan friend who had done a college paper on Secretariat at the time - and said she could not find anything herself as time went by until at least a year). Why would they not bring out that excuse during the season for the sports writers and fans? Were they hoping for better prices on bets?
Kincsem was a girl
And 54 of 54
Not too shabby
Had Citation not run old out of owner greed I guess....who knows
People poo-poo Man O’War based on opponents.
Yet interestingly, never apply that standard to Kincsem or Ruffian.
Kincsem only ran in France and England once, respectively. Those are big-league. Great. All 52 of the other 52 were run in Austria-Hungary - never, ever a hotbed of thoroughbred greatness. Bush league. That’s like Hallowed Dreams and her “record” run. (Citation did not set an American record win streak, BTW - hopefully that lie has mostly been dispatched by now.)
Kincsem was royally bred while undoubtedly beating up on her inferiors.
And, she had 6 walk-overs. Her real “streak” was 48.
Citation should have done better, but he has a pretty good excuse. He did very well as is with a big injury and lay-off. Nothing to be ashamed of.
LOL cool!
I’d like to have a whole gallery of foundation-era horse prints. So cool seeing 1700s/early 1800s racehorses.
About the same distance Trump was ahead and should've won in 2020 as well, I suspect.
Who are they're kidding? The vote count was stopped obviously to "shorten the track" with immaculately conceived Biden ballots that miraculously appeared early the next morning.
In 1972, Secretariat won seven of nine starts as a 2-year-old to win the Horse of the Year award. His breeding rights were then sold for a then-world record of $6 million.
He won his first two starts as a 3-year-old, but faltered in the Wood Memorial, his final race before the Kentucky Derby. Many experts wondered if he had distance limitations, as his pedigree would suggest.
“In fact, a modicum of suspense was needed to save the Derby from tedium,” wrote Time. “No one wants to bet against a horse that seems invincible, and invincible is exactly what Secretariat appeared to be before the Wood.”
Secretariat was a 3-2 favorite heading into the Derby; after a slow first quarter-mile, he ran each of the next four quarter-miles faster than the prior one, and exploded into the lead at the top of the stretch. He blew by his rival Sham, running the final quarter-mile in 23 1/5 seconds and finishing 2 1/2 lengths in front. He became the first horse to run the Derby in under two minutes, setting a track-record time of 1:59 2/5.
In the Preakness, Secretariat broke last but made an incredible last-to-first move on the first turn and cruised to a 2 1/2-length victory.
“If there are still any racegoers who are not convinced that Secretariat is the best 3-year-old in the land, one hardly knows where to search for them,” wrote Sports Illustrated’s Whitney Tower. “And should they be found, June 9 will rout them all.”
Still, there were many observers who doubted Secretariat could win at the 1 1/2 mile distance of the Belmont Stakes. Were they ever wrong.
Just four other horses dared to challenge him in the Belmont, and only Sham posed a realistic threat. At the start, under instructions to run head-to-head with Secretariat, jockey Laffit Pincay rode Sham stride-for-stride through the fastest fractions in Belmont Stakes history. He couldn’t maintain the pace and began dropping back near the halfway point.
As Secretariat blazed into the far turn, track announcer Chick Anderson reacted in amazement. “Secretariat is widening now,” he said. “He is moving like a tremendous machine.”
Many seasoned observers didn’t believe he could continue running at the remarkable pace. Secretariat biographer William Nack told ESPN’s SportsCentury that he recalled thinking, “He’s going to totally collapse down the stretch. He can’t keep this up.”
As he entered the stretch with an 18-length lead, jockey Ron Turcotte famously looked back to his competitors in the distance, and then glanced to the side. According to Turcotte, he was not looking for other horses, but for the timer.
The timer showed that Secretariat had, at 1:59, run the fastest 1 1/4 mile ever at Belmont Park. In the final quarter mile, Secretariat dramatically widened his advantage to 31 lengths and stopped the clock at 2:24, destroying the old track and stakes record by more than 2 1/2 seconds.
Sports Illustrated’s Frank Deford declared, “It was the greatest performance by a racehorse in this century. … The 105th Belmont Stakes will rank among sport’s most spectacular performances, right up there with Joe Louis' one-round knockout of Max Schmeling and the Olympic feats of Jessie Owens, Jean-Claude Killy and Mark Spitz.”
Golf legend Jack Nicklaus told CBS commentator Heywood Hale Broun that he cried while watching the race on television. Broun responded, “All of your life, in your game, you’ve been striving for perfection. At the end of the Belmont, you saw it.”
I don’t want to be argumentative, but now you’re focusing in one one race.
You’re still ignoring the fact he set records that are still standing in all three TC races. He ran on turf just as well as he ran on dirt. And he was HOTY two years in a row, while racing against class competition. None of those things have to do with Bill Nack or Raymond Wolfe.
Your original point was that he was mostly a one-hit wonder and had multiple chinks. Perhaps I am reading this incorrectly and by chinks you mean losses rather than flaws.
I get it, you’re a student of racing history. But there are many, including myself, who don’t agree with your original premise... if I translated it correctly.
“I wonder if it ever won another race.”
Sham suffered a fracture at the 1973 Belmont Stakes, and was lucky to finish last, survive, and go to stud. Sham still holds the record for the 2nd fastest Kentucky Derby time, 159.4, which was only good enough for second place behind Secretariat. As his Jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. once remarked, Affirmed was the best horse he had ever rode, but if Affirmed had been in the 1973 Kentucky Derby he would have finished third.
Sham was finished after the Belmont, sometime in the following weeks they discovered he had splintered his cannon bone (some say it might have already been a greenstick before the race), but healed successfully, and went to stud. Found dead of a heart attack at 23.
Twice a Prince hit the board in some graded stakes after the Belmont including a 3rd to the great Forego, but in '74 he broke down in a workout and eventually developed laminitis and was euthanized.
Secretariat’s run of seeming invincibility came to an end on August 4 1973 in the Whitney Handicap – at the hooves of a horse called, perhaps somewhat ignominiously, Onion.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/aug/01/forgotten-story-onion-secretariat-triple-crown
In my experience (including with racing fanatics) of arguing “who’s the greatest horse”, etc, even racing fans tend to focus on this one race, the Belmont. The better arguments deal with much more but fanboys and non-fans alike tend to focus squarely on Belmont Stk, one race. There won’t be much talk about others.
You are right that he set (track) records for the TC races. And as I stated elsewhere, he set a total of 6 time records out of 12 that year. Officially, Sec equaled 1 world record (1974 ARM - not separated by dirt/turf, so only 1-1/8 counted), 1 American (specifically dirt course), and the rest (4) track records.
Sec never carried more than 126, much less massive differentials in weight, and ran with plenty time between.
On the positive side, he did run turf 2x, and he did face elder several times.
Sec was a great horse. No question. He just cannot be unequivocally called greatest. Even with a spectacular Belmont.
(BTW, records were being set like crazy that season at Belmont - do you know that *every single* distance record up to the 1-1/2mi was set in 1973? Even of the 8 time records for turf - 6 of them were 1973! Oh, and guess who was still on the charts in 1973 at Belmont?)
Don’t worry about being argumentative. I’m usually accused of that. I just can’t resist these Sec-loving threads. They suck me in every time. I just have a chip on my shoulder.
I liked the movie. Just not as good as it could’ve been - and hate that they ignore poor Riva Ridge.
He did not get injured in the Belmont. At least, not conclusively.
See post following yours.
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