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Secretariat would eat anything he saw that resembled food. Inevitably, he got chubby, then more so, and it began to look as if he would be the plump kid on the block who never makes the team. He still has the appetite of the growing boy he is. A small race mare does well to eat 8 or 9 qt. of oats a day, and 12 qt. are a lot for an above-average male. Secretariat is what track people call a "good doer." He eats 16 qt., and between meals keeps his groom busy replenishing the supply of hay on which he nibbles almost constantly.
After a hard race, many horses hardly eat at all; in trainers' terminology, they back off their feed. After the Derby, Laurin watched the groom prepare Secretariat's usual supper—oats cooked into a mash, plus carrots and some vitamins and minerals, plus some "sweet feed," grains coated with molasses to provide the rough equivalent of a candied breakfast cereal. The mixture filled the better part of a big tub, and Laurin said, "He won't finish that in three days." An hour and a half later the tub was empty.
Secretariat could probably have finished even faster, but he is fastidious about his mealtime manners. He likes to work on the mash for a while, then refresh his taste buds with a sip of water or a few wisps of hay. From time to time he pauses to tidy the floor of his stall by picking up stray kernels. He is the neatest glutton at the track.
Secretariat's capacity for food was a handicap when Laurin began training him for his apprenticeship as a two-year-old. The name of the training game is patience. A horse has to gallop a mere slow mile a day before his muscles are in shape to gallop two miles. He has to gallop two slow miles a day for a long time before he is in shape to do any running. He has to run slow before he is ready to run fast, and short distances like a furlong or two before he is ready to run farther.
Training a fat horse requires even more forbearance than working with a skinny one. The fat has to be exercised away, without unduly straining the muscles, before there can be any thought of trying to find out whether he has any speed. The months went by. Other two-year-olds were getting to the races and starting to make names for themselves. When Mrs. Tweedy asked how her wow horse was doing, Laurin's answer for a long time was "He hasn't shown me much." Then the bulletins were amended slightly—but only slightly—to "He's coming along."
Finally, late last spring, Laurin told his boss that he was ready to drop the horse into his first race. When she said she was going to be away on a trip, he said, "I'll wait; I think you ought to be here when he runs." Coming from a cautious and laconic trainer, that kind of statement requires translation. Mrs. Tweedy's spirit soared. The translation could only be: "When this baby runs, you're going to see something."