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Opening Blow. The first race, finally run at Aqueduct on the Fourth of July last year, was part disaster, part triumph. The disaster occurred coming out of the starting gate, when another horse wheeled into Secretariat and knocked him sideways. "If he wasn't so strong," the jockey said afterward, "he would have gone right down." The triumph was that after being slammed completely out of contention, Secretariat closed with a rush, made up seven or eight lengths in the last quarter-mile, and finished fourth.
This was the last time the horse has ever been out of the money. In fact, he never finished behind another horse in all the rest of his nine starts in '72, although once his number was taken down for a foul when Jockey Turcotte used the whip on him for the first time and the startled Secretariat ducked into another horse.
This year Secretariat has won four races out of five. At the 1⅛-mile Wood Memorial at Aqueduct in late April, he ran third, behind Angle Light and Sham. Nobody will ever be sure what went wrong that day. Turcotte is inclined to blame himself. Giving the horse his final speed work four days before the race, Turcotte sent him a mile in 1.42%. A fair workout for most horses—but a heavy eater like Secretariat needs to extend himself between races to keep in top condition, and it might have been better if they had gone faster.
On the other hand, Secretariat might just not have felt right on the day of the Wood. A horse cannot tell his trainer when he would rather stay in the barn. Citation and Man O' War, the two bygone champions to which Secretariat is being compared, also were beaten when they had an off day.
Early Foot. Whatever the reason for failure at the Wood Memorial, there was no hint of difficulty at the Derby or the Preakness. Secretariat set a Derby record (1:5⅜). As usual, he broke out of the gate about even with the rest of the field. Then he promptly dropped back to last in the field of 13. Since he was the 3-to-2 favorite, he must have given many thousands of backers an anxious moment. But that seems to be the strategy that he and Turcotte, his steady rider for most of the past year, have worked out together.
"He could show a lot of early foot if we wanted to," says Turcotte, "but he doesn't seem to like it that way. What I do is, I just let him relax and find his feet. Then he'll give me his speed any time I chirp to him."
In the Derby, the Secretariat-Turcotte brain trust decided to show its speed nearing the final turn. Toward the end of the turn and coming into the stretch, where it seemed that chirping might not be enough, Turcotte gave his collaborator a few whacks with the whip to indicate the seriousness of the situation. After that Secretariat took the lead and drew away.
The Preakness was even easier. Secretariat again broke with the field and dropped back to last while Turcotte let him "find his feet." Around the first turn Turcotte decided the pace was too slow and chirped to his horse, planning to pass a few of his competitors at that point and get into early contention. But while Secretariat was accelerating, the others were slowing down. In one great swoop of the field, Secretariat was in front with still about three-quarters of a mile to run. And there he stayed with the greatest of ease.