Down Memory Lane

I was there when Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes in 1973, when he become the first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948. Penny Tweedy was there, of course. She was running Meadow Stable, and was the owner of Big Red.

Penny Tweedy Chenery has just passed away at 95, but certainly the memory of Secretariat, and even Riva Ridge, will not pass away anytime soon.

The Marlboro Cup was inaugurated so that Riva Ridge and Secretariat could appear in the same race. Mrs. Tweedy said afterward it broke her heart to see Riva Ridge lose, even if it was to his stablemate.

They handed out red caps to everyone that said 'Marlboro Cup' on the front. My friend and I wore ours several times, notably once in Vermont when we were playing golf. A woman in the clubhouse told us she was wondering who those two fellows were with the red caps. She thought were part of a team. She couldn't have been paying any attention to how we were playing. No team would have had us. I wish I still had the cap.

When Mrs. Tweedy was in the racing news in the 70s I remember her telling a reporter that the farm hands didn't want her to witness the actual breeding of a mare, when the stallion is teased and led to mount the mare. The male population of a stable didn't think it was becoming for a female owner to watch that. She did of course, and found nothing really untoward about it.

Secretariat was a horse for the ages. 1973 is now quite a while ago, but it can be yesterday when I'm at the computer and I look up at the framed black and white 16x20 photo I have of Ron Turcotte on No.2, cruising to the finish line in the Belmont Stakes as Ron is looking at the tote board. It is a famous photo, and is now so long ago that it contrasts with the the other color racing photos I have.

Ron of course is not looking at the tote to see what price the horse went off at, he's checking out the fractions, which were astounding. (Secretariat paid $2:20 to win, but $2.40 to place, a quirky payoff caused by a long shot, Twice a Prince finishing second.) As Big Red crossed the wire I pounded on my friend's shoulders and kept screaming, "Look at the time. Look at the time!" Ron certainly was looking at the times.

I keep a framed chart of that race on another wall in the room where no more pictures can be hung. I sometimes look at it and still marvel not only at the final time of 2:24, a track record that still stands, lowered from Gallant Man's 2:26 3/5, but at the fractions, that got the "tremendous machine" there:
23 2/5, 46 1/5, 109 4/5, 134 1/5, 1:59. There were no Beyer speed figures then, but a retro-assignment of a number gives Secretariat a Beyer of 139, the highest ever achieved by a horse to date.

I've previously mentioned the older fellow who we learned a good deal about racing from, Les Barrett, aka Mr. Pace, who wouldn't even stay and watch Secretariat's race, despite our having saved a seat for him. Les was so in love with his Citation he couldn't bear to see another horse become his equal, or better. This despite it was Les who told us that when we saw Secretariat's first victory in a maiden race as a 2-year old that, "they're expecting big things from that horse."

Today's NYT obit is adequate, but because the achievement of Secretariat was so long ago it is hard for anyone who wasn't part of that era to realize the big deal his Triple Crown achievement was. Even mentioning that the horse appeared on the covers of three news weeklies, Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated lacks punch because it doesn't tell you that Secretariat's appearance on the three covers was after the Preakness, but before his Belmont victory. The king was crowned before the ceremony.

I always thought this was ballsy hings to do, and I viewed it suspiciously. Superstition. Even though by 1973 I hadn't yet seen as many races as I have now, I knew enough to know that anything can happen in a race. Just ask the people who backed Arrogate in the San Diego Handicap at Del Mar recently. Ouch.

Fittingly, there is a bronze statue of Secretariat in full flight in the Belmont paddock. I've had my picture taken there. On Belmont Day there is an array of white carnations placed around the pedestal, making it seem as if he's buried there. He's not.

I'm hardly the only one who holds onto Secretariat memories, or memories of his owner. The racing journalist Teresa Genaro tells us in a Tweet that she won't get rid of her landline because she's saved a voice mail message from Penny Chenery.

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