Secretariat (17 page)

What was so encouraging was that Secretariat was passing through a critical stage of transition that winter, a stage many fine two-year-olds never do survive intact. For some reason—glandular or psychological—horses enormously talented at the age of two often fizzle out at three. The 1969 two-year-old champion, Silent Screen, was the most recently conspicuous. He was an extraordinary juvenile, a flop as a three-year-old. Not only did Secretariat appear to be making the passage and emerging his old self at three, to Turcotte he appeared to be improving, growing more rhythmic in his stride, and holding himself higher. On and off the racetrack, the business of Secretariat was compelling attention.

Three days after he sizzled the five-eighths at Hialeah, most of the Chenery family met in Arizona at the home of Margaret Carmichael, gathering to make decisions on dividing up the estate among the heirs. Penny, for instance, chose to center her share of the inheritance in the thoroughbred holdings, while brother Hollis put most of his in the Chenery Corporation, a family holding corporation. In Mrs. Carmichael’s home outside of Tucson, with a broad view of the desert and the foothills west of town, the Chenery family also talked about the horses and what to do with them to pay the taxes.

They agreed that there would be no general dispersal of the bloodstock. First Riva Ridge, now Secretariat, had demonstrated the speed at which money could be made in racing. Nor would they sell the yearlings now, nor the weanlings of 1973, nor the two half brothers to Secretariat and Riva Ridge. Nor Riva Ridge, whose value had so plummeted.

All that was decided was to syndicate the biggest asset, Secretariat, and to play it by ear the rest of the way—to see if Riva Ridge’s value came back and to see if the two colts trained well. They agreed to try for between $175,000 and $200,000 a share for Secretariat.

The Meadow had already established strong historical ties to Claiborne Farm, beginning when Chenery met Arthur Hancock, Sr., in the 1930s, and continuing when Chris became one of the few breeders to send a mare to Princequillo at Ellerslie. Later he sent Hill Prince to stud at Claiborne, later still Sir Gaylord, and he bred his mares regularly to Claiborne stallions. Penny believed that Seth Hancock, though young and inexperienced, had the momentum of a flourishing breeding empire behind him and the counsel of experienced men whose lives had been interwoven with the life of the farm. Some of the managers had been with Claiborne for years, moving to Kentucky with them from Virginia, resettling their lives for the farm. So it was understood that Seth would be asked first to sell their horse for them and stand the colt there once he did.

Meanwhile, as a practical measure, no chances would be taken with the horse until the syndicate was formed. If he lost his first start, indicating he might be a flop as a three-year-old, his value would plunge immediately. So, it was decided in Arizona, the red horse would not run until Seth syndicated him. Lucien had brought the colt to Hialeah under banners that he would point him for the Florida races, including the $100,000 Flamingo Stakes on March 3, but all racing could wait until the big money was in the bank.

The Tucson meetings broke up on February 11, and the move to syndicate the red horse started quickly after that. Having decided to seek out Claiborne for the syndication, the estate sought the counsel of Gayle Mohney, an attorney from Lexington and one of the most experienced lawyers in the business of syndication. Claiborne Farm had not been asked formally to syndicate the horse, and Penny didn’t want to say anything until the terms had been worked out. After discussions with Mohney, a contract was drawn up in rough draft. In its final form, it was a sixteen-page document.

The Meadow had the leverage now to ask for the right to race the colt through 1973, under its care and management and for its benefit. Secretariat had been the Horse of the Year, was expected to make a run at the spring three-year-old classics, and was an exceptional prospect. He was in training, galloping and running toward the Kentucky Derby already, and was still working well, despite rumors of his unsoundness.

So it was agreed that Secretariat would race under the silks of the Meadow Stable through his three-year-old year and that he would be shipped to the breeding farm no later than November 15, 1973.

He would be syndicated for breeding purposes in thirty-two shares at $190,000 a share—Penny argued for $200,000—a world-record total of $6,080,000, or $680,000 more than the highest previous syndication price of $5,400,000 paid recently for Nijinsky II, who was then standing at stud at Claiborne. One share would entitle its owner to send one mare a year to Secretariat.

The farm syndicating him would receive four free stud services a year to Secretariat, three the first year, while trainer Lucien Laurin would receive one free nomination. A free service, unlike a share, cannot be sold like property or be bequeathed in a will. It is a privilege that comes up once a year.

Some farms syndicate horses in thirty-six shares, but it was agreed that thirty-two shares imposed less strain on a young stallion and would induce breeders to buy. If Secretariat were syndicated in thirty-six shares, it would mean the colt would have to breed to forty mares his first year—thirty-six shareholders, three free services to the farm, and one to Lucien. “That’s too many,” Penny said. “You can’t guarantee a
young
horse will cover forty mares.” By selling thirty-two shares, with five free services, the colt’s normal book would include thirty-seven mares, thirty-six his first year.

There was also a teaser in deciding to sell thirty-two shares. While his normal schedule committed him to breeding to thirty-seven mares, Secretariat could be expected to handle more than that as he got older, perhaps a half dozen or more. If the colt’s health or state of fertility allowed it, according to the judgment of the syndicate manager, he might be bred to more than forty mares. The additional three nominations would go to the syndicate members, who would draw for them by lot. Since they were asking such a large amount of money, it sweetened the deal to be able to say syndicate members would be able to draw for a free nomination.

The state of the colt’s fertility would be determined in tests conducted by a panel of three veterinarians shortly after the colt went to the farm, and whether he passed would depend on their findings. The fertility test would involve microscopic examination of his semen and observation of the colt during test breeding. As finally written, it was agreed that Secretariat would stand at the farm until “the certification of the veterinarians is made and, if he shall die prior thereto, or if a majority of the panel of veterinarians shall certify that the stallion has failed the fertility test, then in either of such events this agreement shall forthwith terminate; any amounts paid to Seller by Buyer on account of the purchase price shall be promptly returned, without interest, and no party shall have any further liability to any other party hereunder.”

Such were the essentials. The rough of the draft was finished, late in the afternoon of that February day, and Penny suggested dinner with Mohney and Seth Hancock. Over dinner, Seth Hancock agreed to take on the job of syndicating Secretariat, to try to sell twenty-eight of thirty-two shares—four were retained by the estate—at $190,000 a share.

He inquired about their plans for Secretariat, since the Meadow Stable would continue to race him through 1973, and Penny at one point recalled some sentiment for not racing him at all.

“Well, ma’am, you might want to retire him right away,” said Seth. “After all, he’s already been Horse of the Year and Bold Rulers haven’t wanted to go classic distances.”

“I refuse to consider breeding him at three,” she replied. “The way he runs, I wouldn’t be surprised if he becomes unsound before the end of the year. But I want the opportunity for him to race.”

Seth asked Penny what her plans were if the colt were to lose. “If he loses once, I’ll wonder why,” said Penny. “If he loses twice, I’ll consider retiring him.”

Seth asked her what she had in mind for the colt in terms of his three-year-old campaign.

“The Triple Crown . . . the Bay Shore . . . the Gotham . . . the Wood . . . the Travers . . . the Woodward . . . and the Gold Cup . . .”

So they would gamble. They had already decided to go to the Kentucky Derby by way of New York instead of by way of Florida—the traditional springboard for the spring classics. Years ago, largely through the influence of Calumet Farm trainer Ben A. Jones and his son, Jimmy, Florida became the starting point for horses aiming to run in the Kentucky Derby. Riva Ridge went to Kentucky through Florida, and now Lucien was planning to bypass racing there and begin his run for the Derby in New York, historically the kiss of death for Derby contenders. No winner of the Bay Shore Stakes or Gotham Stakes had ever won the Derby, and the last winner of the Wood Memorial to win the Derby was Assault, in 1946. “I decided to gamble,” Lucien said.

So Lucien would buck the historical odds and send his red horse north to Long Island, to that perilous strait for Derby horses known as Aqueduct.

“It sounds fine to me,” Seth told Penny.

Chapter 18

Daddy imported Nasrullah and syndicated him.

Seth Hancock

At home in his modest ranch on the farm, Seth Hancock was waiting through the final hours of Wednesday, February 21. Ellen Hancock was in Florida at the time, and Seth was waiting home alone for word that would turn him loose on the world’s bloodstock market. He was set to attempt the syndication of Secretariat, to begin the search for at least twenty-eight people game to spend almost $200,000 for the right to breed one mare a year to Secretariat for the rest of his life at stud.

Following dinner at the Coach House on Tuesday night, Penny had gone to spend Wednesday canvassing members of the family and telling them the terms agreed upon in Lexington and seeking approval from them. Seth was sitting by the telephone in the house, reading the
Daily Racing Form
, and waiting for Penny to call. He was wondering if anything might have gone wrong.

It was eight o’clock, then it was nine-thirty.

Though unaware of it, Seth was not the only man waiting for Penny to call him. There was John Finney, the thoroughbred consultant and appraiser for the estate of C. T. Chenery. Finney was now working for European interests seeking to engineer the most spectacular coup in the history of international bloodstock—the purchase and ultimate importation to Ireland of Secretariat.

The week before the Lexington meetings Irish bloodstock agent Jonathan Irwin called Finney from his office at the British Bloodstock Agency Ltd. in Ireland. Irwin was seeking Fasig-Tipton’s help to negotiate with Penny Tweedy for the red horse.

“I have someone here who would be interested in paying over $5 million,” he told Finney, adding that he had the backing of Captain Tim Rogers, one of the leading breeders in Europe and the owner of a large, successful stud farm twelve miles west of Dublin, in County Kildare.

John said, “We just appraised the horse for between $5 million and $7 million. I know they could syndicate him in the neighborhood of $6 million.”

There was a pause in Dublin. “That’s a considerable sum,” Jonathan Irwin said.

“Yes it is, but I know if we were given the opportunity to syndicate the horse, we could do it for that. If you want to come into the market, you better be ready to do six.”

“I think we could do six and a half. Let me call Tim and get back to you.”

That was the limit for Rogers and his associates. “The price I could bear ranged between $6 million and $6.5 million,” Rogers would say.

And that put them solidly in the market—perhaps, they thought, at the top of the market. Irwin called Finney back again, and asked him to represent the Irish in America, to bid for the red horse on their behalf. If successful, Fasig-Tipton would receive a fee of $100,000. John Finney, though feeling some ambivalence, accepted the assignment: he was lured by the fee but repelled by the thought of Secretariat leaving the United States. Thus he became an agent for the Irish.

The Irish told Finney to offer Penny Tweedy $6.5 million, $420,000 more than the figure agreed upon several days later in Mohney’s office and over dinner. The $100,000 fee would be deducted from the offer. Under the proposal, Secretariat would race in America for the Meadow Stable, and the stable would receive all the colt’s earnings as a racehorse. In addition, Secretariat would be permitted to race through 1974, his four-year-old season. The Irish told Finney to stipulate, however, that they would retain the right to retire the horse at any time if they thought he was embarrassing himself or no longer enhancing his value at the stud. And, finally, he would stand at the stud in Ireland.

Irwin having laid out the terms of the proposal, Finney then set forth his plan to win acceptance of them. Finney at once told Irwin that he didn’t want the Irish offer used to pressure American competitors into raising their bids. He advised Irwin that he thought the only chance the Irish had to acquire the colt—if they had any chance at all—was to top the high bid at the final moment, to overwhelm it suddenly when it seemed the last bid had been made. Finney believed that $6.5 million would put the Irish either on the pace or in front of all other offers; it was Finney himself, after all, who had appraised the Meadow bloodstock and had put a value of between $5 million and $7 million on the colt. To be avoided was a confrontation between American and Irish interests, open competition that would simply drive up the bidding. Finney knew the Americans would have an edge because the horse would stand in America, a critical consideration for the Meadow Stud as a breeder.

The idea was to wait for the Americans to make an acceptable offer, watch for the syndication to move forward, and then, just as it was about to begin, to knock off its hat with a sharp counterpunch. Success was as dependent on timing as on money. The Irish agreed. There would be no international price war over Secretariat.

Secretariat in Ireland is what Rogers and Irwin had been thinking ever since they first sat down together to talk of buying and ultimately importing the colt. It was a heady, exhilarating thought for the two men. And it began one day when Irwin called Rogers at the farm outside Dublin, asking him if he would come to the city immediately.

The phone call alerted Rogers to the possibilities open to him. He had already seen Secretariat and was familiar with his record. The past October, considering the purchase of Upper Case as a potential stallion in Ireland, Rogers flew from England to New York to see him at the Meadow Stable in Belmont Park. Rogers didn’t buy Upper Case, but while he was there Penny also showed him Secretariat.

Rogers didn’t then consider ever owning more than a share in Secretariat. But when Chris Chenery died, Rogers knew that the estate would have to find a large chunk of money for inheritance taxes. Still, it simply never occurred to him that Secretariat might be purchased by the Irish.

“Then Jon Irwin rang me,” said Rogers. “And Jon said, ‘There’s a chance we will be able to get Secretariat to come to Ireland.’ ”

Rogers, suddenly alive now to the chances opening for him, drove to Dublin, to Irwin’s home, and for the next two hours the two men talked over the project in Irwin’s sitting room. At the time, Rogers regarded their chances as “problematical,” but he also knew there was reason for hope. The American dollar, as devalued, was not what it had been in the years after the war. And the Irish had a tax advantage that Americans didn’t have. Seeking to stimulate the growth of racing in Ireland, the Irish government didn’t tax profits earned in breeding thoroughbreds—that is, if an Irishman bought a share in Secretariat for $200,000 and sold it later for $500,000, the $300,000 profit would be tax free. Americans, having no such exemption, would have to pay a capital gains tax on such profits.

But what excited Rogers most was the opportunity for Ireland to regain something of what it lost in position and eminence in the breeding of thoroughbreds. Rogers saw far more than simply the purchase of a single racehorse. He saw a historic sweep, a chance to reclaim a part of what had been lost to Americans who, like supermarket shoppers, picked the shelves clean—since Bull Hancock caused such a furor among Irish breeders when he reached over their heads and took Nasrullah from them. The Irish suffered damnably as Nasrullah grew in stature and emerged an Irish giant on American shores. And now, less than twenty-five years later, here was a chance to acquire Nasrullah’s finest grandson and bring him home.

For years, ever since Bull imported Nasrullah, Americans had imported one European thoroughbred star after another. Now the Europeans, like the Japanese and Australians, were spending as much or more money than the Americans at yearling and dispersal sales. Rogers saw signs of this at the sale dispersing Bull’s horses the year before, watching as an Englishman, a Frenchman, and an Irishman—the latter represented by Jonathan Irwin—became the last bidders for a Round Table colt that sold for $250,000.

When Irwin called Finney in Florida, asking him to negotiate to buy the horse for them, Finney agreed. He waited to spring the offer at what he thought would be an opportune time. Finney knew something was imminent, and he waited over the weekend, through Monday and then through Tuesday, the day Penny missed the plane and Seth picked her up in Cincinnati and they all had dinner at the Coach House. Finney didn’t know they had agreed to $6,080,000. But he did find out they had met, and he did know he had recommended between $5 million and $7 million. He guessed that their figure was probably somewhere near the middle. On Wednesday he called Penny. It was time for the counterpunch.

John told her of the Irish offer. She listened to him, saying finally, “Hold on a minute. Let me get a pencil and paper. It sounds very interesting.” Penny jotted down the details. “My brother is in the Bahamas and he won’t be back until Sunday or Monday,” she told John. “I’ll have to consult with him.”

Through Finney, the Irish had made their offer for Secretariat. Rogers and Irwin waited. And Finney waited, too, though not for the Irish alone: he was moving now to protect his domestic flank in the event the Irish deal blew up in his face.

After speaking to Penny for the Irish, Finney then contacted a prominent horseman in Florida whose name would certainly appear on Seth’s list of potential syndicate members. So Finney asked his source to advise him if and when he was offered a share and what the terms of the contract were. If he didn’t get the whole of Secretariat for his European clients, Finney wanted to get part of him for his American clients.

So Seth and Finney waited together, their deals unknown to each other, while Penny canvassed the members of the family.

At about 9:30 on Wednesday evening, unknown to Finney, she called Seth as he waited in the house and read the
Racing Form
and wondered what had happened to her.

“All right,” she told Seth. “We’re ready to start.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

On Friday morning, he decided, he would embark on the job before him, on his first major job as the president of Claiborne Farm, Inc.

Seth was born on July 22, 1949, about five months before his father arranged the purchase of Nasrullah from the Irishmen. He had just turned twenty-three when Bull died. In fact he was still doing his novitiate when he was forced into the void created by his father’s death, but Bull didn’t leave the farm in Seth’s hands alone. His will created a three-man advisory committee—composed of breeders Ogden Phipps, Charles Kenney, and William Haggin Perry—to oversee the running of the place until Bull’s youngest child, then twenty, reached the age of thirty-five. Seth became the president, but his powers of decision making were limited.

Seth didn’t have the depth of training and experience on the farm that Bull had when he took over from Arthur Hancock, Sr., in 1948. By then Bull was already nearing forty, and he had had years to learn the business of breeding horses from his father. Seth acquired most of his experience during summers at the farm, spending time with the yearlings and the broodmares between years spent at Woodberry Forest Prep School in Virginia, where Bull had studied, then later at the University of the South in Tennessee and the University of Kentucky. He graduated in agriculture in 1971, knowledgeable about the quality of hay and cattle.

His passion was not for hay and cattle, however, but for horses, the racehorses and the farm. Through all his years in college, he was a voracious reader of racing publications, with a steady diet of the
Daily Racing Form,
the
Thoroughbred Record,
and The
Blood-Horse.
He wanted to work at Claiborne Farm, to learn the business as his father had learned it. After the army, he came to work for his father, permanently, in February of 1972. They had Seth’s training program all worked out.

First he would work six months with the broodmares. Then he would work six months with the yearlings. Then he would spend a year riding the giant spread with William Taylor, the farm manager, learning all ends of running the empire. Then Seth would move into the office.

He had just finished working six months with the broodmares when Bull died, and the set-piece training program fell apart. He never got to the yearlings, and he never spent the year trailing after Bill Taylor. Suddenly he had real work to do.

He dove straight into the center of the place—Bull’s old office—slipping a picture of his dad beneath the glass on the top of his broad desk and spending hours working over it. “He’d leave early in the morning and he’d be gone all day,” said Ellen. “Then he’d come back home for maybe half an hour or an hour for dinner, and then he’d go back to the office and come home again about nine-thirty, and then he’d sit in his office here and read until eleven or eleven-thirty. That’s late down here. Most men are in bed by nine. He’d be up at six-fifteen. We were married only six months when all this happened and it was a big switch in our life. But I knew how much he wanted to do it and I wanted him to do it.”

Most of the clients were his elders, and he knew he had something to prove about himself. He was intensely serious, and he was least patient and angriest with those who would exploit him because of his age—his most vulnerable point. Seth was not the sort to be shoved around. He liked and respected his father enormously, but he refused in the end to knuckle under to Bull on the matter of his college education.

He wanted to work with horses after high school, and not go to college, but his father insisted that he get a degree, and that he get it at a school away from Kentucky. Seth went along with that for two years, attending Sewanee, then decided to transfer to the University of Kentucky, closer to the farm. Bull objected.

“If you do, you pay your own way,” Bull finally told him.

“I thought, ‘If he’s going to be bull-headed, I can be, too,’ ” said Seth. “So I decided to pay my own way.”

Seth got up early on Friday to begin the selling of a racehorse for more than one had ever been sold before. He walked past the horse cemetery to the office and settled into the green chair behind the desk. He faced the fireplace and the list.

The office was utilitarian—a beige rug, wood panels hung with pictures of horses that Claiborne raised, bred, or owned. To the front, there were oils of Nasrullah and Round Table, and on the mantel above the fireplace was a football, dedicated to Bull the day he was buried, that was used in play in the Villanova-Kentucky football game.