Oh Well

The guys and gals at the New York Times obit desk have missed another salient nugget when they updated the advance obit for Ron Turcotte, Secretariat's jockey in perhaps the most memorable Belmont Stakes ever. 

Ron had a brother Rudy who was also a jockey. The obit staff can be forgiven for this omission since Rudy died in 2019 and William Grimes, who wrote the advance obit and Ama Sarpomaa, who updated it, likely haven't spent the last 50+ years of their lives at racetracks trying to pick winners. William Grimes was a fine wine and dining reporter who eventually moved onto to obits before retiring. I know nothing of  Ama, other than I suspect she's not over 30 and has a recent byline covering a wedding.

Rudy of course is not the subject, but it's a nugget missed. I didn't know Rudy rode Angle Light in the 1972 Garden State Stakes when Turcotte rode Secretariat to victory and Angle Light finished second. Both horses would have been 2-year-olds.

Angle Light and Secretariat, both being from Meadow Stable, would run as a coupled racing/betting entry. In the above photo from Secretariat's Kentucky Derby win in 1973 he's, 1A , as Angle Light would be 1 (Angle Light finished 10th). In the 1973 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct on April 21, 1973 Angle Light was entered with Secretariat, and basically saved the bettors' bacon by winning wire-to-wire, with Secretariat struggling to finish 3rd. Not the prep race you would like to see just weeks before the Derby. I was there.

Turcotte of course wound up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life after his horse clipped heels with another in 1978 at Belmont, and Ron's spine was basically crushed in the spill. Unmentioned is that Turcotte had a protracted lawsuit against  New York Racing Association claiming there was a defect in the track that caused the spill.

There must have been some basis for his lawsuit, since there had been some other spills in that exact spot. Years went by and then the lawsuit must have been settled out-of-court since eventually Turcotte started showing up on the grounds representing the Disabled Jockeys Fund and signing autographs.

Turcotte was a reliable jockey who never scared you off the horse if you liked the horse. I had forgotten that the spill was not that many years after the Triple Crown in 1973.  

I didn't realize Turcotte once won 6 races on a card at Aqueduct, a rare and astounding feat. Lots of French Canadians are harness drivers, since harness racing is wildly popular in Canada. Flavian Pratt, a first class jockey right now comes from a harness racing family.

Turcotte and Secretariat will forever be entwined. I get a little more nostalgic when I look at the 1973 photo of Secretariat winning the Belmont since now the rider has passed away, of course the horse has, and my friend Fourstar Dave, who I was with in the last section on the third floor at Belmont, standing on the seats and yelling to look at the telemeter, as Turcotte was, at the fractions and eventual final time, likely never to be achieved again.

The NYT Turcotte obit is right now not in the print edition. The announcement of Turcotte's passing was announced on the racing program in the afternoon yesterday as it became known. There are statues of Secretariat in paddocks, but this photo is my statue of Turcotte with Secretariat, the photo I have overhead when I look up from this desktop. Oddly, the Belmont picture is not used in the online obit, but my guess is it might get used tomorrow, when I give it 5/2 that the Turcotte obit hits the front page on Sunday.

It would be fitting.

Note:

Front page didn't happen.

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