Secretariat (27 page)

“I don’t think it will bother him,” Gilman was heard to tell Laurin.

So Secretariat would go to the post that afternoon with what appeared to be a harmless abscess inside his upper lip. But the morning brought a combination of things that would bear upon the Wood Memorial that afternoon. Pancho Martin and Sommer read Charles Hatton’s column for the day, and it compelled Martin to rashness. Through the week, Martin planned to run three Sommer three-year-olds in the Wood—Sham; Knightly Dawn, the colt accused of bothering Linda’s Chief in the Santa Anita Derby; and a speedy colt named Beautiful Music, who had just won his only start by ten lengths at Santa Anita. There was talk that Martin might be ganging up on Secretariat and still talk of the Santa Anita Derby, with intimations that Knightly Dawn had lain on Linda’s Chief deliberately, despite the stewards’ ruling to the contrary. Hatton sat in Secretariat’s corner, and he was clearly concerned about the entry. Through the week his column implied that there might be skulduggery afoot in the Wood Memorial. He accused no one of plotting foul play, but the slant of his column made it clear that he believed the three New York stewards—Nathaniel Hyland, Francis Dunne, and Warren Mehrtens—might have to settle the outcome of the Wood by arbitrating foul claims. Hatton came to racing in an era when jockeys rammed one another, grabbed saddlecloths, and recklessly cut each other off—before the film patrol—when anything went if you could get away with it.

Fearful that the Wood might develop into a donnybrook, Hatton wrote on Thursday: “The Wood is supposed to decide who has the most horse, not the most horses.”

On Friday Hatton criticized several horses being pointed for the Wood:

There . . . were indications the stage would be cluttered by a lot of spear carriers when the protagonists, Sham and Secretariat, make their appearance. The eyes of turf fans everywhere, as well as the sharp optics of the stewards, will be focused on the $100,000 added nine furlongs. We shall not be surprised if the tote board lights up with foul claims like Times Square on Saturday night. Our best advice is to hold all mutuel tickets.

Martin had entered the three horses, and Hatton quoted Lucien Laurin as saying: “The only way they can beat him is to steal it.” There was nothing intrinsically inflammatory about that. In racing, the stealing of a race is an old tactic, probably dating back to the days of Ben Hur. A horse steals a race when he goes to the lead, sets a leisurely pace unchallenged, and then has enough left to hold off superior horses when challenged in the lane.

But Hatton gave “stealing” a darker dimension when, after quoting Laurin, he wrote: “Stewards Dunne, Hyland and Mehrtens are assurance that nobody is going to purloin the race.” With that he implied foul play and added: “It is not as if horses have not ganged up on Secretariat before, if it comes to that, and he is the best alley fighter of his species we have ever seen.”

Growling with anger, Martin scratched both Knightly Dawn and Beautiful Music, leaving Sham to do it all himself.

The scratches changed the makeup of the Wood, taking two speed horses from it and leaving the pacesetting to the only other consistent speed horse in the race—to Edwin Whittaker’s Angle Light.

Less than an hour to post time for the Wood—the seventh race—the race for which everyone had been waiting, in stall 16, next to Secretariat, stood Angle Light. Sweat gave Secretariat a final cleaning with a rag and brush.

Exercise boy Charlie Davis took the halter as Sweat moved around the horse and swept a brush and towel down the back and rump, down the Nearco croup, and across the flanks and shoulders and down the legs. Secretariat bit at Davis and kicked at Sweat, who was working quickly.

The speakers in the barn crackled with a metallic voice.

“Get your horses ready for the seventh race. Get your horses ready for the seventh race.”

That was the Wood. Sweat moved to bridle the colt. Secretariat had always been sensitive around the ears, but the colt never shied when Sweat put the bit in his mouth.

Now, as post time neared, Sweat couldn’t bring the colt to open his mouth. Sweat had touched the abscess earlier in the day, after Gilman left the barn that morning, and Secretariat had flinched. He applied hot towels in order to bring it to a head. First Sweat put the blue frame of the bridle over the colt’s head, fastening that, and then put the bit in his left hand and stood on Secretariat’s left side and tried to open the jaws.

Secretariat raised his nose, backing away. Sweat paused, talking to him. He brought Secretariat forward again, and tried to insert the bit. The colt again resisted. Minutes passed. Sweat had never had such trouble putting the bit in Secretariat’s mouth. That afternoon it took Sweat about five minutes to put on the bridle, finally coaxing the horse to take the metal—gently. Sweat picked out the dirt from Secretariat’s feet, moving from leg to leg as Davis held him. At 4:20 Sweat picked up a blue wool cooler and unfolded it. Stepping into the stall, he tossed it across the horse’s back and buckled the front leather straps.

“That’s it,” said Sweat. “Nothing more to do but wait.” And wait.

Secretariat threw his head repeatedly, tossing his nose in the air as they waited for the signal to go to the races.

The voice over the loudspeaker broke out harshly again.

“Bring your horses to the paddock for the seventh race. Bring your horses to the paddock for the seventh race.”

It was 4:23. Davis unfastened the webbing and Sweat took Secretariat from the stall and down the aisle of the receiving barn for the Wood Memorial. Nearby, leaving his stall, was Sham. Sweat stopped and waited. Behind him was Angle Light.

Out the door they marched through the sunlight of the afternoon—Secretariat, Angle Light, Step Nicely, Champagne Charlie, Sham, Flush, Leo’s Pisces, and Expropriate: the seventh race, the forty-ninth running of the prestigious Wood. Up the ramp from the barn to the racetrack, the horses crossed the chute and stepped down a two-lane walking path outside the clubhouse turn. Now and then a jet roared overhead, while the wind from Queens scalloped the waters of the infield ponds and the flags pointed toward Jamaica Bay, as if giving directions to the gulls. Beyond them rose the grandstand of Aqueduct, its back to the city, and beneath it the crowd of 43,416 horseplayers.

Secretariat stopped on the path beyond the chute, raising his head to see the distance. “Nothin’ but people over there, Red,” said Sweat. “Now come on.” Bowing his neck, Secretariat bounced two jumps and settled to a walk. He seemed nervous, flighty, stopping and starting and looking toward the grandstand. Nearing the end of the path, where it joined the racetrack, the starting gate rolled by and stopped, ready to be wheeled into position near the finish line in front of the grandstand. Aqueduct is a one-and-one-eighth-mile oval. The red horse jumped as he approached the starting gate, then stopped and snorted, pricking his ears forward and looking at it.

“Wait now,” said Sweat. “That’s the gate. You’re not getting into that for a while.”

The paddock was filling with owners and trainers and newsmen. Among them were Robert Kleberg of the King Ranch, who turned down a share in Secretariat; and Walter Salmon, oil executive Howard Keck, and Johnny Nerud, who didn’t. Seth Hancock was with Keck. The trainer of Citation, H. A. (Jimmy) Jones, was there talking with Sam Renick, a former jockey who rode in the wake of the days of the great Earl Sande, the Handy Guy.

“That horse,” said Jimmy Jones, looking at Secretariat, “he’s as big as a four-year-old.”

“He’s bigger than Citation ever was,” said Renick.

The crowd draped over the apron of the paddock fence and applauded as Secretariat walked into the circle. Laurin met Turcotte in the walking ring, and they conferred briefly there. They had already decided that Turcotte should ride the colt as he usually had ridden him.

Nearby in the paddock, Martin talked to Jorge Velasquez, who would ride Sham. Laffit Pincay had another commitment that day, and Martin had picked Velasquez as a substitute.

Up the steps walked Jacinto Vasquez, a heady Panamanian jockey with a sly grin and a tough, swaggering way about his walk and talk. Laurin had chosen Vasquez to ride Angle Light, and while Laurin greeted Turcotte, Vasquez walked over to Edwin Whittaker, who was wringing his hands.

“Nervous?” said Vasquez, as if about to slap him on the back.

“Yes,” said Whittaker.

“Don’t be,” Vasquez assured him. “It’s just another race.”

The crowd was buzzing in the post parade, clapping for Secretariat as he walked up the ramp to the racetrack. They were busy sending the Secretariat-Angle Light entry off at $0.30 to $1.00, and making Sham the second choice at $2.60 to $1.00. There were fewer than ten minutes to post as Laurin and Penny Tweedy climbed the stairs to the box seats. The Sommers were waiting in their seats, too. Racing Secretary Kenny Noe, Jr., who wrote the conditions for all the races and weighted horses for the handicaps, moved into his seat up front, near Vanderbilt and Ogden Phipps, who was there to see Bold Ruler’s greatest son try to get the nine furlongs of the Wood.

Down on the racetrack, meanwhile, assistant starters led Sham to Post Position 2, just inside of Champagne Charlie. Number 2 was a favorable post that would give Velasquez a chance to establish position before the turn, without using Sham, and to save ground around it. Secretariat stepped into Post Position 6, with Angle Light on the extreme outside, in Post 8. There are only 330 feet from the finish line at Aqueduct to the first turn, and Vasquez would let Angle Light bounce the first 300 feet to get position for the run into it. He didn’t want to get caught outside on that bend and lose ground. He couldn’t afford it. Laurin’s orders to him had not been difficult.

Vasquez knew that speed was Angle Light’s game, so he decided to gun the bay the first 100 yards into the turn, then try to get him to relax on the lead. Vasquez respected Angle Light. He had ridden Our Native against him in the Flamingo, beating him by only a neck.

When the gates slammed open, sending the field of eight thoroughbreds barreling toward that turn, Vasquez saw the open space in front of him and sent Whittaker’s bay rolling for the lead, sprinting quickly from Post 8 and crossing over to the rail.

Several strides from the barrier, Step Nicely came over toward Secretariat, and Turcotte eased the colt back, taking ahold of him through the first sixteenth of a mile into the bend. The red horse dropped back to seventh, next to last, in the dash for the turn. Taking advantage of his post, Velasquez let Sham roll into the curve. He broke second and let Sham settle in behind Angle Light. Velasquez was not afraid of Angle Light and through the run to the first turn he sat still and began his long wait for the horse he feared, waiting and waiting as Angle Light cruised on the lead in front of him.

Turcotte steered Secretariat clear of trouble going into the first bend, swinging him to the outside and keeping a hold on him around the turn—“A slight hold,” Turcotte said. By now he was not afraid of losing ground with Secretariat, not afraid of going wide with him.

The race was on. Or was it?

Banking into the backstretch, passing the chute, there he was—Angle Light. He was running along unchallenged on the front end, galloping through the opening quarter mile in 0:24
3
/
5
. Angle Light had stolen the opening quarter. Sham, a length behind him, went it in 0:24
4
/
5
. Secretariat, with Turcotte sitting tucked on him, ambled along in 0:25
3
/
5
, barely fast enough to force him to a deep breath when he was fit. No one moved to counter Vasquez’s gambit. He was breezing Angle Light on the lead, and he was feeling the bay relax beneath him as they turned and moved down the 500-yard backstretch straightaway. Velasquez was still waiting for the red horse. He was not going to send Sham to the front to fight it out with Angle Light and set it up for Secretariat’s paralyzing final burst of speed. Velasquez would continue to track Angle Light and wait for the red horse. The timer was catching Angle Light in twelves to the eighth, too, too slow. With each relaxed and easy stride, Angle Light thus became more dangerous. Hunched over him, Vasquez began to look like a kid playing with matches.

Turcotte had already sensed trouble as Angle Light swept into the backside. Secretariat was carrying his head higher than he usually did, Turcotte thought, and he seemed to be climbing around the first turn, his front legs not striding out level. More troublesome, though, was what Turcotte felt through the lines in his hands: The colt wasn’t running up against the bit. Turcotte had picked him up around the turn, after he swung him to the outside, but the colt didn’t grab the bit and lay against it, as he did whenever Turcotte shortened his hold and asked him. Racing past the seven-eighths pole, following that slow first quarter, Turcotte chirped to Secretariat, urging him to take hold and get with it. He chirped several times, making a kissing sound with his lips, but there was no response.

Up front, Angle Light barely picked up speed as he raced through the second quarter down the straight. He was running now against the wind, moving the quarter at the rate of 0:23
3
/
5
. He opened up a length and a half on Sham, who was still tracking him while, patiently, Velasquez waited for Secretariat.

So Angle Light breezed the half in 0:48
1
/
5
.

He was twelving them to death.

The Wood unfolded beautifully for Angle Light that opening half. Glancing at the teletimer, which blinked excitedly on the tote board, the crowd seemed to sense it, for there was a stirring of voices as the fractions flashed on it—0:24
3
/
5
, 0:48
1
/
5
. Getting no response when he chirped to Secretariat, Turcotte tapped him on the shoulder with the stick. They were racing past the three-quarters pole. The colt moved up, picking up the beat, but he didn’t take hold. Turcotte’s concern now deepened to dismay.