BackTrack: Secretariat Delivers Dominating Belmont Win

Slightly canted, he lurched from the gate, the face from Time and Newsweek angling to the left. For an instant, the eyes stared into cameras to the left of the rail, and the privacy of the deep blinkers was invaded, like those of a fox startled and held by the sight of a human before he slips into the underbrush. It was not a flaw, not a misstep, but it deprived Secretariat of a tiny moment's speed. As if to make up for the hint of loss, he rushed on, breaking in fact better than usual. The horse which had trailed in the opening strides of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness quickly was head and head with the others in the 105th Belmont Stakes.

The bartenders and taxi drivers—infallible barometers of events—had promised that the Belmont would be something out of the ordinary, and Secretariat was off to prove them right. Although the great chestnut colt had gained his reputation first by sweeping rallies around the turns and in the stretches, he moved on to take command in the Belmont. From the opening stride toward his left, he glided along the rail—having broken from the inside post—and to anyone brave enough to challenge he offered his chin from the opening bell.

Laffit Pincay Jr., a young man who only a few days before had ridden his 500th winner to be center of an hour, had no great expectations about the Belmont, but he crouched hopefully over the lean darkness of his horse and allowed Sham his best chance. Sham, which had felt Pincay's whip and searched deep for courage in the Derby and Preakness, was willing, and he set out to defeat Secretariat. At the first turn, Secretariat was to Sham's left, and that was something different. In the Derby five weeks before, Secretariat had rushed by him on the right, a chestnut motion that had emptied the swell of free-running confidence Sham had carried around the final turn. In the Preakness, Secretariat had rushed by him again, once more on the right, and it had come so early in the race that Sham had the largest part of a mile to stare at the favorite's haunches as he sought desperately to narrow the gap.

Now the big red shoulders and checkered blinkers were beside him, to the left, and—it seemed—in his grasp. Sham looped out of the first turn nearly even. Pincay sat easily against the bit, glancing over to Ron Turcotte and Secretariat, hoping for signs that they somehow would be bothered by the head and head confrontation.

The pace was swift, but the air was in Sham's nostrils, there was nothing in front as he looked down the russet path, and he edged on—into the lead.

Like John P. Grier in an age before, Sham was committed to the battle—long though the odds—and he meant to take it to the end. He got his nose in front, then the length of his dark head, his neck, half his glistening body. Now Secretariat would have to catch him.

Sham's moment was brief. Secretariat the stretch-runner lost no equilibrium in being in front. This was not Gallant Fox and Whichone setting it up for a Jim Dandy, not even Canonero II and Eastern Fleet locked in a private duel that would last to near the end. This was a great horse letting a good horse have his run, and then he would smash him.

The first quarter-mile was run in :23 3/5 (too fast for a 12-furlong race). The next required only :22 3/5 (good strategy for the Toboggan, suicide for the Belmont). The aggregate half-mile time was :46 1/5, much of it around the turn. The heat of the pace perhaps was accented by the dishearteningly familiar sight of Secretariat, the fatigue inherent in losing the Derby and Preakness after supreme efforts, or some other, hidden catalyst. At any rate, it soon was over. Sham was easy prey.

It would not be a long, excruciating grinding down of his resources. It was quick, more merciful perhaps, and Pincay knew. The horse he had slashed stride after stride during the murderous final furlongs of the Derby and Preakness this time he would not punish further. The public was entitled to Sham's best effort, and Pincay let him give it, but he would not dishearten a brilliant colt more by asking for something he knew—probably had known for weeks—Sham simply could not deliver.

Once Sham was done, the race was over. Farther and farther ahead drew Secretariat. Turcotte glanced often over his shoulder. The torrid pace continued, but it was not a duel, it was a super display of a horse running within himself more swiftly than most horses can run in a drive. He went from the mile pole to the six-furlong pole in :23 3/5, added the next quarter-mile in :24 2/5. The mile time was 1:34 1/5; next fastest time for that fractional distance of a Belmont was 1:35 3/5, recorded by Secretariat's sire, Bold Ruler, when he was goaded into a speed duel with Gallant Man's stablemate, Bold Nero, in the 1957 running. Whereas Bold Ruler reeled, fading eventually to third, 12 lengths behind Gallant Man, Secretariat went right on to complete 1 1/4 miles in 1:59, two-fifths of a second faster than his record time for the Kentucky Derby.

So, the suicide pace was not suicide at all—not for the one that dictated it. Secretariat was seven on top after a mile, as Sham still held second, and he was 20 on top after running the next quarter-mile in :24 4/5. By then, the others had lost their identity, no longer competitors but merely moving yardsticks whose only function was to provide a measure of Secretariat's mastery.

Turcotte had time to check the infield Tote in the stretch run, and he allowed Secretariat to roll along, hoping for a record, rather than to begin slowing him. Secretariat went the last quarter-mile in :25 and won by 31 lengths. His time of 2:24 was 2 3/5 seconds swifter than Gallant Man's stakes and track record of 2:26 3/5.

The inevitability of Secretariat's completion of the Triple Crown was not so apparent early in the race as it may seem in retrospect. Even those who know the colt best—Mrs. John Tweedy and trainer Lucien Laurin—had some uneasy moments as the blazing fractions kept flashing up every 24 seconds or so.

"I certainly was worried," Mrs. Tweedy said a few minutes after the race. "Then, in the stretch, Lucien said the only way he could lose from then on was to fall down."

Turcotte, aboard the brute, always felt he was going well. He had watched the other riders in the warm-up, to see if he could tell which one might be planning to run from the start. He thought about the rider's styles, the various trainers' usual instructions, and guessed that none of them was going to try to cut him off by gunning out and cutting to the rail early. Pincay had been told by Frank (Pancho) Martin to take Sigmund Sommer's Sham to the front early, but the rider's efforts did not include rushing the colt to try to come from the outside post in the five-horse field to the rail before the first turn.

After the Belmont, after the reality of the first Triple Crown in 25 years had become manifest, Laurin and Turcotte swapped banter on how the horse—and they—had done it. They have disagreed in the past, but on Belmont Day their disagreements were less important, for it had turned out so well. The disagreements were over such things as at what point Turcotte had made his smartest move in the race, or whether he warmed up the horse very much before the race ("I took him farther than I did for the Derby or at Baltimore.").

Turcotte said he did not deliberately send Secretariat at the start, that the horse settled into stride on his own. He did express some question over the swiftness of Sham's demise: "He was going very easy. Pincay had a good hold on his horse, but I was not worried when he got a half-length on me. Pincay is a good rider, and I was not afraid he would go on and drop in front of me, or crowd me on the turn, because he does not do these things. So, I just let my horse run on his own, and he was going very easily.

"After three-quarters, I do not know what happened to Sham. All I can figure is that the 9 1/5 must have cooked him, because he suddenly just stopped, and we went right on. Yes, I knew we were going fast, but my horse was running so easily, I was not afraid. I never pushed him—he was just running on his own. The only place I ever really started riding him was in the last sixteenth or last eighth, when I see the time, and I want to be sure we get the record this time.

"But this horse really paced himself. He is smart; I think he knew he was going 1 1/2 miles."

Laurin suggested that, while the colt is smart, he is not that smart. (Probably, Secretariat cannot read.) Laurin  said he knew why Sham stopped, and it was because Secretariat had cooked him down in Baltimore, in the Preakness. He disagreed about the six-furlong fraction having done in the Sommer colt, because Sham is the sort that can reel off three-quarters in less than 1:09 any time. The trainer thought that no horse can know how long he is going to be asked to run on a given day, so as to pace himself, and he believed Sham quit because he realized that it was Secretariat running inside him and running easily.

"Well, they were running right together there straightening out for the backside," Turcotte countered, and it looked to him that Pincay had a good hold on his horse. Then, suddenly he stopped. "I thought maybe he was going to take back and then run at me, and I went off there, real suddenly by two lengths. I looked back to see what he was doing, and then I knew I didn't have to worry about Sham anymore. Then, I just let my horse run on like he wanted to, without hurrying him or pushing him."

Surely, Laurin thought, he must have pushed him when rounding the turn, the way that horse went around there. 

"No," said Turcotte. "I never pushed him. Listen, tell you one thing: This is the best turn horse I ever saw. He always wants to run on the turn. He picks up on the turn because he likes to run there. [It conjured visions of the horse's devastating rushes between the backstretch and the stretch in the Hopeful and Futurity, sewing up victory while losing ground in a looping move around the outside.] I don't know why, but if he picked up some lengths on the turn today, it was not me—it was him. He really likes to run on the turn."

Even at the moment of their ultimate triumph, the two Canadians could not agree, but this time the argument was fun.

Twice a Prince rallied for second in the longest classic, and in so doing gained some vindication—if losing by 31 lengths ever thus can be considered. Twice a Prince, a colt with stamina on both sides of his pedigree (Prince John-Double Zero II, by Never Say Die), did not race at 2, then won a maiden race at 1 1/8 miles in his first start at 3, on Feb. 14 at Hialeah. Trainer John Campo ran Maxwell Gluck's Elmendorf Farm homebred only once more before moving him into stakes company. He was third in an allowance race, then was wearing down Shecky Greene while losing by only a length in the Fountain of Youth Stakes at 1 1/16 miles. Bob Ussery, who rode Twice a Prince that day, jumped off confident that Shecky Greene never would beat him again, but he was wrong.

Shecky left Twice a Prince 11 lengths up the track in the Stepping Stone Purse a week before the Derby, after the Elmendorf colt had been unplaced in the Florida Derby but had won a nine-furlong allowance race at Aqueduct.

It was before the Derby that Twice a Prince gained his villain's cloak. Upset by the infield crowd, or by the assistant starters, or both, he reared, became entangled in the gate, and pawed at the saddle of Our Native, in a neighboring stall. Sham banged his head on the gate, freeing two teeth, and as the weeks passed his trainer, Martin, more and more blamed Twice a Prince for the incident.

Then, Twice a Prince acted up at the gate before his next race, a June 2 allowance, and he finished fourth.

Martin could not stand the sound of his name: "They are giving that horse the same consideration as if he were Secretariat. You don't see him on the starters' list—at least not until he races. A horse like that should be sent to Lincoln Downs." As Latin fervor urged his voice to its bombastic best, he took a verbal swipe at Campo, and then let it drop.

Martin several days before the race announced that Sommer's Knightly Dawn, winner of the Jersey Derby, would be entered along with Sham for the Belmont. On Friday before the test, however, he announced that Knightly Dawn would run only if the track were not fast. It was fast, and Knightly Dawn stayed in the barn.

In addition to Santa Anita Derby winner Sham (Pretense-Sequoia, by Princequillo), runner-up in the Wood Memorial, the Derby, and the Preakness, the field included Pvt. Smiles and My Gallant. Winner of the Blue Grass Stakes, Arthur Appleton's My Gallant (Gallant Man-Predate, by Nashua), had run ninth in the Derby but had come back on May 31 to lead all the way and defeat older stakes winner Loud in a nine-furlong allowance race at Belmont Park. It seemed an ideal way to approach a Belmont, but his trainer, Lou Goldfine, said on the day of the classic that he thought it was "a little like going after an elephant with a BB gun."

C. V. Whitney's Pvt. Smiles had pedigree, looks, and question marks going for him. The striking chestnut colt by Herbager is from Silver True, a Hail to Reason filly that won the Spinaway and is a half-sister to Silver Spoon. Pvt. Smiles, a maiden until April 17, had been unable to make any impression on the better grades of 3-year-olds in the Stepping Stone on April 28, but exactly a month later he had charged from ninth to miss catching Knightly Dawn by a tiny nose in the slop of the Jersey Derby. The questions were, was he merely an off-track horse or had he really improved so much in so short a time?

The result, of course, pointed to Secretariat as equinus maximus, the rest as, well, horses. Indicative of the response to Secretariat was that most of the other riders were joking and happy after the race. Like the crowd, they were exhilarated. Pincay apparently had taken no illusions into the race, and Angel Cordero Jr., rider of My Gallant, said "Secretariat can just do everything a great horse can do."

Baeza, who said he had thought he had a good chance to run second, "but no chance to win," was asked if Secretariat reminded him of his days on Buckpasser as a 3-year-old. "You cannot compare," he said, but he added with a broad smile, "With Buckpasser, I have the confidence; with Secretariat, Ron has the confidence."

Secretariat ended a quarter-century drought, during which the Triple Crown emerged from a four-times-a-decade routine into the biggest adrenaline producer in the sport. By its seeming impossibility, the Triple Crown became legend, aided by the two-thirds then a clink of Tim Tam (1958), Carry Back (1961), Northern Dancer (1964), Kauai King (1966), Majestic Prince (1969), and Canonero II (1971). (Forward Pass cannot be placed in the same category, inasmuch as he went into the Belmont—and into stud, for that matter—with his 1968 Derby-winner status still clouded.)

As hopes kept being raised only to be dashed, a feeling grew strong among the many of little faith that racing had evolved to a point that there could be no Triple Crown winner. This feeling grew despite the numerous winners of the first two-thirds, after a decade had elapsed between Citation's 1948 sweep and the  next time a horse even won the first two- thirds.

Sir Barton won the first Triple Crown in 1919, Gallant Fox the second in 1930, then Omaha in 1935, War Admiral in 1937, Whirlaway in 1941, Count Fleet in 1943, Assault in 1946, and Citation in 1948. A generation of the Turf has grown up with the number—eight Triple Crown winners—as indelible as the date of the first Kentucky Derby, and a change to nine Triple Crown winners seemed somehow surrealistic.

The ninth member is a flashy son of Bold Ruler-Somethingroyal, by Princequillo. He is a full brother to stakes winner Syrian Sea and a half-brother to major winner and sire Sir Gaylord and to major winner First Family (which was third in the 1965 Belmont). Bold Ruler, seven-time leading sire, being mated with a daughter of leading sire and leading broodmare sire Princequillo to produce a superhorse may make the breeding game seem simple, but there exists no noticeable Bold Ruler-Princequillo nick. Of the 37 foals (through 1970) sired by Bold Ruler and out of Princequillo mares, eight became stakes winners, or 21.6%. Of Bold Ruler foals (through 1970) out of all mares other than Princequillo mares, there emerged a slightly higher percentage (23) of stakes winners. Secretariat, then, perhaps could be said to be the result of an anti-nick. Patterns, however, mean nothing when such a horse comes along, else a Secretariat could be designed and planned for with some semblance of order.

Secretariat was foaled and raised on the rolling lands of Doswell, Va., at Meadow Stud, where Mrs. Tweedy's father, the late Christopher T. Chenery, founded a new operation on an old foundation. The Meadow was built in 1810 by Charles Dabney Morris, an ancestor, but the home and land passed from the family's ownership after the Civil War changed the lifestyle along the North Anna River near Richmond. Chenery bought it back in 1936, and on the 2,600 acres 41 stakes winners have been bred.

There were floods last year, but generally it is pleasant land, friendly land, green and lazy in the spring and summer, bright and golden of autumn. Howard Gentry, a Virginian who has worked there since 1946, is the manager. Gentry knows the barns and horses and fields of blue grass, orchard, fescue, and clover, as Lucien Laurin knows Secretariat and Riva Ridge and Capito.

There is a field on a hill, across the road from the main farm, that affords a view of the house and many of the barns and fields where Riva Ridge's new little brother and the other youngsters and mares roam by day. It is a pleasant spot to sit in the tall grass and watch the day give way. Of all the spring evenings that have wafted down over The Meadow, there was one of particular import. Of all the foals that Gentry and his men have attended as they snuggled in their damp newness next to their dams, there was a certain one foaled on March 30, 1970, of all the possible March 30ths, of all the possible stalls on all the possible farms. He was to win the Belmont by a larger margin than Count Fleet did, bridge the gap of Citation-to-present, tear down the caution of horsemen in their appraisals, and sing to the hearts of those who knew him.