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Silent Movie. Cars come and go down the roadway—trainers on their errands, exercise boys and jockey agents going from barn to barn, owners arriving to see their horses work out. But the cars move slowly, with scarcely a sound, partly because this is the code of racetrackers, partly because those unfamiliar with the code find their progress slowed by high bumps built into the roads and a succession of signs that read YIELD: HORSE CROSSING.
Horses walk stiff-legged in the cool morning air to the track where they work out, their impassive exercise boys sitting aboard them. At the barns the trainers are supervising the morning's activities; the grooms are cleaning out the stalls or putting the tack on a horse about to go to the track; the hot-walkers are leading the horses that have already been to the track round and round until they have cooled out from their exercise. All with hardly a sound, as if the whole busy scene had been captured in a silent movie. A person can stand five feet from an angry trainer dressing down an errant groom and never hear a word he is saying.
Secretariat's home—ordinarily—is especially serene. Trainer Laurin, who races one of the best strings of horses at Belmont even without Secretariat, has a cluster of buildings all to himself, surrounding an outdoor walking ring and a grazing plot. The area is its own little world, isolated from all outside influence, peopled only by the same familiar faces that work there every day, going about their business with quiet and calming assurance.
The calm has been disturbed, of course, by Secretariat's reputation. Reporters and photographers have shown up frequently and curious passers-by try for a glimpse of the horse or for a word with Laurin. That kind of turmoil, together with the pressure and travel of the Triple Crown competition, could give any thoroughbred fits. Secretariat seems immune to nerves.
A race horse knows a day he is to run because his usual ration of hay disappears. Many animals become edgy, difficult to handle. Secretariat is so calm that just before the Derby he lay down for a refreshing 90-minute snooze. He did the same thing just before the Preakness. A TV crew does not faze him. Recently, while a handler was being interviewed, Secretariat calmly began to nibble on the microphone on the off chance that it was edible. Once, while the horse was being led to stable by Groom Ed Sweat, the leather strap broke off in Sweat's hand. A stallion on the loose can be a perilous thing. Were his people scared? "You can say that again," recalls Laurin. But Secretariat merely stopped and waited for Sweat to grab the halter. "He wasn't going anywhere," says the groom.
Horse as Ham. "When a cameraman is around," says Penny Tweedy, "and he hears the clicks, he puts up his head and stares off into the distance, looking grand. He's quite a ham."
It is almost as if Secretariat realizes how short a period he has in the limelight. Unfortunately for people who love to watch a great horse in action, Secretariat's racing career has less than six months to go. Even if he stays sound and keeps improving, as seems likely, he is slated for early retirement no later than November.