Secretariat (40 page)

“No, I think . . .” What follows remains unclear. Caught shifting mentally between French and English, Lucien momentarily loses his capacity for articulate speech. He speaks unintelligibly, then regains command and says, “He used to be a little on edge and kick but today he’s acting very good. Very quiet and very wonderful.”

The jockeys come to the paddock—Danny Gargan for Pvt. Smiles, Braulio Baeza for Twice a Prince, Angel Cordero, Jr., for My Gallant, Laffit Pincay, Jr., for Sham, and Turcotte.

Turcotte and Laurin meet in the ring. They have already discussed the race, and Laurin is going over briefly what they have already talked about. “Now don’t take him back too much, Ronnie. See how they’re going. I’ve been looking at the record and many Belmonts have been won on the lead. If he wants to run early, let him. But don’t send him. Don’t choke him, either. . . .
Use ton propre jugement.
”

“Riders up!” yells the paddock judge.

Laurin lifts Turcotte aboard, wishing him luck, while the crowd around the ring ebbs back to the grandstand. The horses make one circuit and turn out of the ring and head through the tunnel to the track. Secretariat appears cool and dry, even in this heat, a contrast to Sham, who is washy and wringing wet with perspiration.

At once they emerge in the clear light of the racetrack.

“Here he comes!” Jack Whitaker tells 30 million people.

As he leaves the tunnel, there are boos and applause following him up the racetrack, and then the band strikes up the Belmont song, “Sidewalks of New York,” and the crowd stands and sings.

Looking around, Turcotte sees that none of the jockeys are warming up their horses. They are trying to relax them, he thinks, to keep them cool. Now he feels Secretariat moving almost dully, so he taps the colt with his whip and tries to wake him up. But Secretariat responds indifferently. Turcotte taps him again. The colt again reacts without enthusiasm.

“There’s something wrong with him, Charlie,” says Turcotte. “I tap him and he doesn’t seem to want to move.”

The other jockeys continue to go easy with their horses, not warming them up in the heat. So Turcotte decides to go to the front, if no one else wants to set the pace. He decides to prompt the pace from the outset. He has been thinking that Sham or My Gallant would be trying for the lead, but now he thinks they’ll be taking back. So, he decides, he will press the issue. He will let the red horse go to the front.

He gallops Secretariat around the turn and back into the stretch. The horses are now filing toward the gate. The crowds are all out on the pavement, shoulder to shoulder, and there is a crackling excitement in the air. More applause builds, rises, ebbs.

This is what they’ve come to see, not only those at the racetrack but those watching on television. The horses load into the metal starting gates. Starter George Cassidy stands on a green platform by the rail twenty feet in front of the gate, and watches as the horses move one by one. The assistant starter takes Secretariat into the stall gate, then slams closed the door behind him. The colt stands calmly. They load Pvt. Smiles and My Gallant next to him and Twice a Prince. Then Sham. Anticipating the start, Secretariat drops into a crouch, lowering himself about six inches back on his hindlegs. They are all ready.

It is 5:38.

The five colts vault from the gate head and head, Secretariat leaving with them in three giant strides in which his forelegs and chest rise fully four feet in the air, breaking more sharply than he has ever broken in his life. The crowd is on its feet howling. Secretariat isn’t falling back today, not as he usually does at the break, but rather picking up speed quickly and running with My Gallant through the first half dozen strides. He is racing with the field from the first jump. Looking to his left quickly Cordero sees the red horse grabbing the bit and running powerfully against it, and decides not to make an issue of the pace. Taking hold of My Gallant, Cordero drops the colt behind the red horse going to the turn. Other riders follow his lead. Baeza, outrun from the gate on Twice a Prince, lets the colt settle to find his stride. Gargan drops way out of it on Pvt. Smiles. But not Sham. Pincay hustles. He has been told to try for the lead on Sham, so he rouses Sham from the outside post to loom up for the lead. The Belmont Stakes develops with a rush to the turn.

Folding up and keeping his hands still, Turcotte at once takes a snug hold of Secretariat. Glancing right, he sees Sham going for the lead and Cordero taking back on My Gallant. Now he has room on the rail. A hole stays open in front of him. Seeing the space, Turcotte keeps ahold of the colt while chirping to him. Secretariat responds, surging and accelerating to the turn. Sham joins him on the outside. Slipping to the left as the others fall back, Sham comes to the flanks of Secretariat. The crowd stays on its feet. The Belmont is a match race at the first turn. Sham is a head in front of Secretariat as they race past the 1
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pole, 220 yards out of the gate, and the jockeys are letting them go. The pair draws away, racing the opening eighth in 0:12
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. They appear to be on their way to the beat of twelve, to that opening half-mile in 0:48 seconds that is the throne in the Belmont Stakes.

But then they pick up more speed, gathering momentum around the turn. Pincay seeks the lead, and now he moves to make an issue of it. Chirping, he urges Sham to keep pace with Secretariat. Turcotte, seeing Sham thrusting his head in front, and responding with more speed, sits and waits on Secretariat. The battle joined, Secretariat skimming the rail with Sham lapped right on him, the two begin to pull away from My Gallant.

They drive the bend as one. The crowd senses a fight and they roar them on. They’re running as if it’s a six-furlong sprint: they rush the second eighth in 0:11
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. Pincay knows they’re going too fast, senses Sham working too hard, but he presses on. He is under orders to challenge for the lead. Martin wants the red horse to run at Sham. Sommers’s bay moves up faster on the turn, challenging and probing at Secretariat. The red horse forces the pace. He is sailing beside Sham. Pincay is waiting for Turcotte to take back on the red horse. But Turcotte is conceding nothing. He feels his colt is running easily so he gives him his head and lets him roll for the turn.

Together they race the opening quarter in 0:23
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, sharp time.

Now is the time to take back. Now they can give the colts a breather, time to settle down through two more eighths in 0:12 for that half in 0:48. But Pincay has not given up on gaining the lead. He tries for it again around the turn, urging Sham on. He goes to the lead by a full head. Then he is a neck in front. Then almost a half-length. They power past the 1
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-pole. It is Sham’s longest lead, and he battles to keep it. Secretariat gives him no time to relax. He contests every step of ground. He presses at Sham, keeping the pressure on him. And presses again. He’s not letting him get away. They race the third furlong in 0:11
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, still a sprinting pace, far too fast for this distance.

They have nine furlongs to go and they should be galloping. At this moment Turcotte could ease the pressure, but he does not. Turning for the backside, he lets Secretariat come to Sham again. Neither lets up. Unrestrained, they are sizzling along better than twelves to the eighth down the backside. The fractions pile up. Pincay keeps looking and hoping for Turcotte to take back on Secretariat. Turcotte, for himself, looks for Pincay to take back, letting Secretariat roll. He comes back to within a neck of Sham, picking up speed, then closes to a head-bobbing nose of him.

John Finney, standing in a box seat with syndicate member Bertram Firestone, senses what is happening now. As the two colts race to the mile-pole at the head of the backstretch, following the half-mile, his eyes turn to the tote-board teletimer. Finney blinks. And so does Lucien, who grows grim as the teletimer flashes frantically its message:

0:46
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“They’re going too fast!” Finney hollers to Firestone above the din. They have rushed through the fastest opening half-mile in the history of the Belmont Stakes.

What is Turcotte doing? What is he thinking about?

He is not thinking about the clock. He is simply sitting on Secretariat. He does not know how fast he’s going. He knows he’s rolling, yes—but he thinks the colt is running 12 seconds to the eighth, as Riva Ridge had run the year before, galloping the first half in 0:48. Secretariat is moving so effortlessly under him, not straining but moving well and doing it all on his own. The colt is awesome in the way he runs. He has been on the left lead around the turn, and as he banks and straightens into the backstretch, Turcotte feels the hitch in Secretariat’s rhythmic stride: nine jumps into the backside straight, Secretariat has switched to the right lead—machinelike in the ease with which he does it—and levels out into long, smooth, and powerful strides. The pressure of the pace becomes intense. Neither colt has eased off an instant from the start.

They race in tandem for the seven-eighths pole. Ahead of them, the backstretch opens to the far turn 800 yards away, wavering in furrows in the heat, wide and flat and empty. Turcotte feels the wind rushing his face, his silks billowing out behind him. Looking to the right, he sees the wet and lathering neck of Sham, whose nose is thrust out in a drive. Turcotte thinks Sham looks as if he’s under strain. And he is. Pincay feels the colt not striding well. Ten lengths behind them, My Gallant and Twice a Prince are running head and head down the backside in a race of their own. Baeza, on Twice a Prince, looks ahead and sees the hindlegs of Sham beginning to come apart, swimming and rubbery, and for the first time thinks he might have a chance for the $33,000 in second money. It is only a matter of time, Baeza thinks, before Sham will drop back to him. Cordero has seen Sham in distress, too, and now he’s trying hard for second money. So Baeza hollers to Cordero, who is riding next to him.

“I’m going to be second, man!”

“Screw you, man,” Cordero says to Baeza. “You gotta beat me!”

Their race is on down the backstretch.

Secretariat races the fifth furlong in 0:12, giving him five-eighths of a mile in a sensational 0:58
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. That eighth begins to pry him loose from Sham. Sham is already suffering. They are still running as if in a dash, faster than Spanish Riddle raced five furlongs in the fifth that day, faster than Man o’ War and Count Fleet and Citation ran the first five furlongs in the Belmont Stakes. Secretariat is almost a length in front coming to the seven-eighths pole, with 1540 yards to go. He has just dragged Sham through a second quarter-mile of the Belmont Stakes in 0:22
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, then taken him out a fifth furlong in 0:12. He cannot maintain that clip. Yet what has been seen is still only preliminary. Now he is delivering the coup de grace, the cruncher. Secretariat rushes through the sixth furlong and under the pressure of it Sham begins to disintegrate almost visibly. The crowd can see it, clamoring and shouting as Secretariat begins to pull away from Sham, opening a length and a half. He is picking up speed again, charging down the backside, his form flawless through the twenty-five-foot sweep of his strides—forelegs folding and snapping at the ground, the hindlegs scooting far under him and propelling him forward, the breathing deep and regular, the head and neck rising and dipping with the thrust and motion of the legs. Having chirped just once to force the pace at the first turn, Turcotte has done nothing since then to bring him where he is. Yet, he is racing through the sixth furlong in 0:11
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, the crunching eighth, and opening two and a half lengths on Sham. Sham is finished with that eighth. He has been asked for more than he has. Secretariat sweeps past the three-quarter pole. Eyes swing to the teletimer:

1:09
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There are gasps from the crowd. The reaction is almost universal. Finney is stunned.

“That’s suicidal!” he yells to Bert Firestone. By almost one full second it is the fastest six furlongs ever run in the Belmont Stakes, and only 0:1
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seconds off the course record for that distance. In the box seats, Lucien has seen the splits and his face is rigid. His lips are pursed. His hands are on the box-seat railing. He understands the implications of the running time. So he waits, staring at his red horse bounding around the far turn.

Down on the racetrack, racing official Pat O’Brien stands by the finish line looking at the teletimer and his mind jumps back to that afternoon of June 15, 1957, when Bold Ruler raced through the first half-mile in 0:46
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and the three-quarters in a suicidal 1:10
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and almost stopped to a walk in the stretch, finally finishing third. Remembering that, O’Brien sees the sins of the father visited on the son.

Up in the press box, CBS’s Gene Petersen hollers to
Racing Form
columnist Herb Goldstein, “He’s going to win big, Herb!”

Goldstein, appalled by the fraction, shouts back:
“He’s going too damn fast!”

Dr. William Lockridge, the syndicate member, looks at the time from his place in the dining room at Belmont Park and excitedly climbs up on a chair and then onto the dining room table. The beginnings of pandemonium rock the place.

What is Turcotte doing? Has he gone mad?

He is still sitting cool on the turn, listening as Sham’s hoofbeats fade away behind him. Turning around once to see who is coming, he sees them dropping back. Then he turns again.

He wonders how fast he’s going. He suspects he is going fast enough. He has not cocked his whip, and he’s still thinking he’s traveling at the rate of 12 seconds to the eighth. He thinks he has gone the three-quarters in 1:12 and that he is doing the seven-eighths in 1:24 and coming to the mile mark in 1:36. It has all been working so beautifully for Turcotte. Secretariat has killed off Sham and now he’s coasting home, far in front and getting farther. The colt is bounding along on his own. He has opened three lengths on Sham. Now four, now five. Then six. Turcotte turns again and sees them all far behind him. Now he is widening the lead to seven as he races on the turn and finishes the seventh furlong in 0:12
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, giving him seven-eighths in 1:22, and banks around the turn through the eighth furlong in 0:12
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. Once again the crowd’s eyes turn to the clocks and roll in their sockets: