Secretariat (11 page)

Lucien was sitting in a box seat with Penny Tweedy while the horses walked past the grandstand in the single-file post parade, turned, and broke into warm-up gallops past the finish line, around the first turn. In the front row of the box seats by the finish line sat sixty-year-old Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, recently appointed chairman of the board of trustees of the New York Racing Association, the organization that runs Aqueduct, Belmont Park, and Saratoga.

It was nearing two o’clock. There was a wind blowing south against the horses walking to the starting gate up the backstretch, south toward Kennedy International Airport across the highway, toward Jamaica Bay. Bettors, some already moving to the rail on the homestretch, were busy making Secretariat the tepid $3.10 to $1.00 favorite.

Big Burn, jockey Braulio Baeza up, stepped into Post Position 1. An assistant starter took hold of Secretariat, who was wearing his blue and white checked blinkers, and led him into Post 2. The door slammed shut behind him. Feliciano patted the colt’s neck and waited. Strike The Line stood in gate 3 next to Secretariat, while Jacinto Vasquez sat on Quebec in Post 4. Binoculars rose to eyes.

Dave Johnson, the track announcer, looked through his binoculars toward the starting gate, clicked on the lever of the loudspeaker system, and drove his voice through the clubhouse and grandstand.

“It is now post time,” said Johnson.

It came all at once—the break, the sounds, and the collision—three seconds stitched into a triangle of time.

The gates crashed open, the bell screamed, and the horses vaulted upward and came down in a bound, Secretariat breaking sharply through one-two-three strides when Quebec sliced across Strike The Line and Vasquez hollered, but there was nothing anyone could do.

Quebec slammed dully into Secretariat, almost perpendicularly, plowing into his right shoulder. Like a fullback struck on his blind side, Secretariat staggered and fell left, crashing into Big Burn, and for several frames it appeared as if the red horse had two tacklers hanging on him. Quebec and Big Burn were leaning on him and trying to bring him down. Secretariat’s legs were chopping savagely and Feliciano heard him groaning as he was struck and worked to regain his legs. It was a wonder he didn’t go down.

He raced down the backside in eleventh place, next to Strike The Line, and Feliciano started scrubbing with his arms. Secretariat was digging, trying to pick up speed as they headed for the turn 300 yards ahead. He was not getting with it as fast as the others. Count Successor raced to the front, Knightly Dawn lapped on him in second, Calumet Farm’s Herbull third, and Master Achiever nearby in fourth.

The horses strung out charging for the turn when Secretariat started drifting aimlessly, his path a wavering line, his neck thrust out and pumping. Moving to the bend, he seemed confused as he drifted momentarily to the right, bumping a roan called Rove. Feliciano took back on the left rein, leaving the right line flapping, and the red horse leaned left to make the bend. There was nothing else Feliciano could do, nothing since the collision. Paul looked around and began seeing everything go wrong.

There was no place to run, and the rail was clogged up in front. Horses were pounding on his right, and they left no room for him to swing Secretariat out and get him rolling in the clear. A wall of four horses was shifting around in front of him. He had two horses beaten, racing for the three-eighths pole midway at the turn for home, and he had nowhere to go. The colt started to run up a hole opening in front of him, but that squeezed shut, too. He was working to get with it, as if looking for the holes himself.

Secretariat was a Cadillac in a traffic jam of Chevrolets and Datsuns, trapped hopelessly in the shifting, dimly unfolding mess around him. Lucien Laurin, looking through his binoculars, was astounded. Watching the break from the side, he missed seeing the crunch at the start. He was astounded because the red horse had always broken well in his morning trials, not slow like this and floundering rudderlessly. As the field made the bend, passing the five-sixteenths pole near the top of the stretch, Count Successor was still on the lead, Knightly Dawn beside him, Master Achiever now third, and Herbull on the outside fourth. The pace was not slow. The leader was carrying his field through a half mile in 0:46
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, brisk for two-year-olds, with Secretariat about ten lengths behind in 0:48. As the field straightened into the lane, racing past the grandstand bettors howling at them, it appeared for a moment as if Feliciano was going to swing the colt to the outside. Almost running up on horses’ heels, Feliciano had to slow the colt entering the lane, to check him.

Nearing the three-sixteenth pole, Secretariat suddenly veered on a sharp diagonal to the left, lunging for space as it opened on the rail, and took off. He was looking for spots, looking and moving for running room. Daylight in front of him, horses on the outside off the rail, scrubbing on the red horse furiously, Feliciano drove Secretariat down the lane. Secretariat gained, passing a tiring Knightly Dawn and then Jacques Who. He was gathering momentum, picking up speed, cutting into Master Achiever’s lead, from eight lengths nearing the furlong marker in midstretch to seven and then to six as Master Achiever raced for the wire.

The frontrunners were battling it out, and passing the eighth pole, the red horse appeared. He cut the lead to five lengths, then to four and a half, then finally to four lengths passing the sixteenth pole. He was in the hunt, and Feliciano was asking him for more steam, reaching back and strapping him once right-handed.

A small hole opened between Master Achiever and the rail near the wire. Feliciano drove the colt toward it. Secretariat was now running faster than all the others, closing the lane and cutting the lead to three lengths, then two lengths as the wire loomed, then one and a half lengths. Suddenly the hole on the rail closed as Master Achiever came over, and as the wire swept overhead Feliciano had to stand up and take Secretariat back again—“He gave me three runs that day! Three!”—to prevent him from running up Master Achiever’s heels. He closed about eight lengths on the leaders in a powerful run through the stretch, finished fourth, and earned $480, beaten only a length and a quarter by Herbull. As he crossed the finish line, the first thought that came to Paul Feliciano was, “God damn, I’m going to catch hell.”

Up in the press box, trackman Jack Wilson had already seen Secretariat’s run and sat down to write a brief summary of the race for the official chart, which read in part: “Secretariat, impeded after the start, lacked room between horses racing into the turn, ducked to the inside after getting through in the stretch and finished full of run.”

Down in the box seats, Penny Tweedy smiled as the colt raced across the line—she, too, was unaware of the collision—and told Lucien, “That’s pretty good for a first start.”

Lucien jumped from his chair in the box seat, kicked it, and growled, “He should have
never
been beaten!” His reaction startled Penny. Lucien had told her only that he thought she ought to be there for the colt’s first start—not that the colt was going to win, only that his workouts were impressive and he appeared to be learning fast. Lucien’s reaction made her realize for the first time how much he thought of Secretariat.

Feliciano pulled the colt to a halt at the bend, turned him around, clucked to him, and galloped slowly back to the unsaddling area by the paddock scale, where the jockeys weigh in after a race. As he galloped back, he happened to look over his left shoulder, toward the paddock, and as he pulled up he saw precisely what he expected—Lucien standing in the paddock waiting for him.

Jumping off Secretariat, Feliciano began preparing himself. All he could do, he thought, was tell the truth.

Feliciano weighed in at the scales, and turning around, he handed the saddle and pads to a valet and walked over to Lucien. The trainer waved a finger in Feliciano’s face. “God damn!” he said. “You sure as hell messed that one up.”

What was worse for the young apprentice was that he was scheduled to ride another horse for Lucien in a later race—Sovereign in the seventh. But between races, Lucien and Penny had seen the films, and as Paul came to the paddock for the seventh, Lucien was smiling. Quietly, Lucien apologized for yelling at him, and Feliciano recalled Laurin telling him he hadn’t seen the films then and didn’t realize the battering he’d taken at the start.

Yet, even with that, it surprised Paul when he picked up an overnight list of entries nine days later and glanced at it as he left the jockeys’ room. Under the entries for the fourth race on July 15, a three-quarter-mile sprint for colts and geldings, he read: “Secretariat . . . Feliciano, P.”

Chapter 11

Secretariat walked away from his first race staring, his eyes still wide open to the startling snap of the gate and to the collision—and no doubt to the suddenly quickening beat of his life.

Lucien did not hesitate to fuel his intensity, to keep him on his toes through July. Six days after his first start, Secretariat worked to three-eighths of a mile in 0:35
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at Belmont Park. Four days later Lucien sent him out to zip three-eighths again, this time breezing in 0:36 on a sloppy track, the day before his second race on July 15.

Jules Schanzer didn’t abandon Secretariat July 15, writing in the
Daily Racing Form:

Secretariat turned in a remarkable performance after being badly sloughed at the start of his rough recent preview. The half-brother to Sir Gaylord turned on full steam after settling into his best stride and was devouring ground rapidly through the stretch run. Today’s added distance is a plus factor that can help him leave the maiden ranks.

Nor did the bettors abandon Secretariat at Aqueduct, sending him off as the $1.30-to-$1.00 favorite over Master Achiever.

Paul Feliciano emerged from the tunnel by the jockeys’ room and walked to Lucien in the paddock. They huddled briefly. “Don’t do like you did last time. Just stay out of trouble and let him run. He shouldn’t get beat.”

Lucien then gave Feliciano a leg up on the colt, and to the sound of Sam Koza’s Aida trumpet signaling the field of eleven horses to the post, Feliciano was already thinking about what he would do. He was more nervous than usual that afternoon because he himself believed—as Lucien and thousands of bettors no doubt believed—that he should not have lost his first start, that he should not be beaten this time, and that he was sitting on a horse who needed only room to run. He thought about the opening jump from the gate, hoping the colt would break well and in the clear, not in a tangle of horses again, and he thought he would try to keep him on the outside where he would have room to move.

What made Lucien the angriest, thought Feliciano, was a jockey getting a horse in trouble and getting him beat when he should not have been beaten. That was inexcusable. So he was rehearsing what he would do to keep Secretariat in the clear, free to move when he wanted to. He decided he wouldn’t rush the horse, even if he broke slowly, but rather would let him settle into stride and move out when he put it together.

Into stall 1 moved Fleet ’n Royal, the colt who had finished third, a nose in front of Secretariat, on July 4. The youngsters loaded each in turn. An assistant starter took ahold of Secretariat’s rein on the left side and led him into Stall 8, to the outside of Jacques Who and to the inside of the post of Bet On It, a gelding with a quick turn of foot. The instant before the red horse stepped into the starting gate, Feliciano pulled a pair of plastic goggles over his eyes. Secretariat gave no signs of nervousness at the post, no feeling that he would bust hell-bent for the turn. Secretariat stood relaxed inside the gate, Feliciano recalled, looking casually ahead.

Starter George Cassidy, standing atop a platform about ten yards in front of the gate, watched for the moment when the heads stopped turning. Then Cassidy pressed the button, the gates popped open, and the eleven liberated horses started bounding forward as one.

Secretariat broke alertly, as he did July 4, his head emerging from the gate with the others in the first jump, but with that first single stride he was already running last, already a half length behind Jacques Who at the break. Ten feet from the gate, with the others barreling for the lead and beginning to string out, he was still nearly trailing the field. This start, among others, would later give rise to the false notion that the battering he took in his first race made him timid in all his starts, made him afraid to leave the slip with his field, causing him to take himself back.

But he didn’t take himself back that afternoon. He was pumping and driving with his front and back legs, trying to move his bulk apace with the field. He was reaching for whatever ground he could grab beneath himself, but he wasn’t getting there as fast as the others.

Up in the box seats, Laurin’s mouth dropped open as the colt fell back to last, astounded that it was all happening a second time.

Feliciano sensed the colt was having no easy time finding his stride, so he sat tight on him as they started to race for the bend, not reaching back and strapping him, not hollering at him. Instead, Feliciano sat pumping with his arms, in rhythm with the stride. Through that first quarter mile, Feliciano wondered whether Secretariat would ever get it together. All he could do for the moment was keep the colt to the outside, clear of traffic, and wait for him to find himself. He began to worry in earnest as the field pounded through the first 220 yards, leaving him with only five furlongs to go and still no running horse beneath him. He was asking Secretariat to run, but without the whip, pumping on him as they raced to the bend.

Bet On It was sprinting toward the half-mile pole a length in front, zipping along at an eleven-second clip through the first eighth, with Master Achiever right behind and Impromptu third. They were rolling as Secretariat finally came alive.

As the field raced down the backside for the turn, Paul suddenly began to feel it happening beneath him, a coming together of stride and movement, a leveling out and smoothing of motion that retired exercise boy Jimmy (The Squirrel) Weininger once recalled, in tones of reverence: “It’s the oddest thing. It’s like you’re a pilot and you’re out there warming up the engine and then it shifts into that one gear that sends your ass down the runway. A horse drops down and he’s in first gear and then he’s in fourth gear and it’s sort of like flying, taking off.”

Feliciano recalled seeing horses on his left, remembered the sense of Secretariat running easily and the feeling of the colt generating power beneath him. The red horse grabbed the bit between his teeth, and Paul felt the momentum forward, sitting still and feeling the surge.

Secretariat was on the outside then and moving past Monetary Crisis and Scantling and finally Fleet ’n Royal, moving into sixth as Bet On It finished the first quarter mile in 0:22
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, a fast clip, with Secretariat almost seven lengths behind in 0:23
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. Irish Flavor was on the inside, running with Secretariat for a few jumps as Bet On It drove around the bend and headed for the three-furlong pole. By the time the field had raced midway of the turn for home, Secretariat had bounded past Irish Flavor and was moving six horses wide toward home. He was losing ground on the outside but gaining in a rush on the leaders. He was a running horse with nothing in front of him now but running room, moving on his left lead as he swung around the horses.

Nearing the stretch, Secretariat passed Impromptu, and entering the straight he had Jacques Who measured, charging past him at the three-sixteenths pole, Feliciano still sitting and pumping as Secretariat raced past Master Achiever and moved to Bet On It nearing the eighth pole. He was a half length behind, then head and head, then in front.

The crowd was shouting. Feliciano reached back and hit Secretariat once as he was getting to the front. The colt led Bet On It a half length with 220 yards to run, increased his lead to two lengths and then three lengths passing the sixteenth pole, finally to four lengths and to five lengths and to six as he raced under the wire.

Paul stood up in the stirrups and felt the sweet elation flowing as he galloped toward the clubhouse turn, easing back on his reins and bringing the red horse to a stop at the turn.

Secretariat had raced the fastest six furlongs in his life, 1:10
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, coming off a speedy half mile of 0:45
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. He won $4800, but that was only a promise of more to come. He was a son of Bold Ruler from a Princequillo mare, and he had won his second race by six.

Like exceptional broodmares on the breeding farm, the promising two-year-olds on a racetrack are the gold men covet. To a jockey, whether an apprentice like Paul Feliciano, or a journeyman like Ron Turcotte, a talented two-year-old means a potentially talented three-year-old and four-year-old, a money winner for several years running. To have a two-year-old is to have a future.

Secretariat ran as if he had a future.

Lucien Laurin liked what he saw that day—the way Secretariat lost all that ground and won by himself—but most trainers of Laurin’s experience have emotional brakes that draw them up short before allowing them to make the mistake of liking a two-year-old too much too early. He remained skeptical because the colt had only beaten a bunch of nonwinners and horses who might never make it. Lucien had seen so many horses break their maidens and never make the lead again. It was an old story on the racetrack.

Up in the press box, Baltimore turfwriter Clem Florio jumped to his feet as Secretariat crossed the line, turned to colleague Mike Quinn, and said loudly, enthusiastically, “That’s my Derby horse for next year!” Everyone heard him in the press box, even rival handicapper Mannie Kalish of New York, who advised Florio that there was a long way to go to the 1973 Kentucky Derby and that he might do well to temper his enthusiasm. Florio, a prominent Maryland handicapper, had seen Secretariat’s first start, had seen the crunch at the outset, had seen how the red horse had been impeded and was running wild at the end. So when he saw him tour the high ground on July 15, making it so difficult on himself, and watched him accelerate down the lane and pick up horses relentlessly from the turn to the wire, he wasted no time making his revelation known.

At his home in Valley Stream, Long Island, Ron Turcotte was dopey from the painkiller he had been taking for almost ten days. On July 6, Turcotte had nearly been killed on the homestretch at Aqueduct.

That day, trainer Walter Kelley had put Turcotte on Overproof, telling him the horse needed to be pushed and hustled along if he were going to get the money.

As the field paraded to the post, nearing the starting gate on the racetrack, Turcotte began working on the colt, waking him up and telling the pony boy, “Either he’ll do it today or he’ll die.” He was only kidding.

Turcotte laid into Overproof as the field left the gate, racing head and head for the lead right from the start. He was making Overproof bounce. Turcotte made the lead, turning into the homestretch, and was battling for it when the horse began acting oddly at the three-sixteenths pole. “All of a sudden he started wandering. I hit him left-handed. Then I hit him right-handed. And then I went to switching the stick when I realized he was getting hard under me. His neck muscles were tightening right up. That’s when I realized something was really wrong. I couldn’t hit him again. Then all of a sudden he jumped up, just like he was dead, and he fell over to the right.” Turcotte struck the ground near the sixteenth pole, thrown there with such tremendous force that his rib cage bent inward, causing contusions of his heart muscle, lungs, and back. He lay there and couldn’t move. The horse lay dead nearby, dead at the three-sixteenths pole and running on instinct or adrenalin or whatever it is that horses run on when they die of heart attacks during races.

Turcotte was rushed to Physicians Hospital in Queens. He was out of action for twenty days, until July 26.

He couldn’t ride Secretariat in his first start, July 4, because he was committed to ride Summer Guest in the Monmouth Oaks at Monmouth Park, a major filly race. He won the Oaks on Summer Guest for Paul Mellon’s Rokeby Stable. On July 1, the morning of the day Riva Ridge won the Hollywood Derby, Lucien had mentioned casually to Turcotte—as they drove through the parking lot at Hollywood Park—that he would have liked to see him ride the red horse in his first race. Turcotte thought no more about it. To him, Secretariat was a likable colt of no particular distinction at the time—handsome, well bred but untested.

Turcotte was in bed, at home in Queens, when the colt won his second start under Feliciano.

As Turcotte lay sedated with painkillers that day, his wife Gaetane left their home near Merrick Boulevard in Queens and drove off to a medical supply store in Laurelton, Queens. During the drive she turned on the radio. The first voice that came on was that of the off-track betting announcer who gave the results of the Aqueduct races by re-creating them in a studio, calling them as if he were there.

As Gae pulled up to the medical supply house, the race came on. She stopped the car and listened. She had forbidden Ron to listen to any racing while he recovered, but she thought he might like to know who won the fourth that day at Aqueduct.

Gaetane thought she recognized the name of Secretariat as the race was called, but she wasn’t sure. She thought it was the horse Ron had spoken about some weeks before, the colt he had told her had all the trouble in his first race, the pretty boy.

A week later, finally able to climb out of bed, Turcotte got restless at home and one morning drove to see Laurin at Barn 5. His back was still sore, and he was taking Butazolidin—an aspirinlike painkiller—when he sat down with Laurin in the office near the barn. They talked awhile of Riva Ridge and of the other horses in the barn and finally of Secretariat. Lucien asked Ron if he would be able to ride opening day at Saratoga.

Turcotte told Laurin that despite the pain he would start working horses in the morning before Saratoga opened. Lucien said he thought the red horse had some class, might be a stakes horse, even off that one victory, and so it was important for Turcotte to ride the colt as soon as possible. Secretariat’s next start would be on opening day, July 31, at Saratoga, an allowance race with fast horses in it.

“If I put somebody else on him, I might have to ride him back in the stakes. You feel all right?”

“Yeh,” Turcotte said. “I’m all right now.”

Secretariat’s first victory set other things into motion, too, one of them in the back of Penny Tweedy’s mind.