Secretariat's Immortal Race: "He's Running Like a Tremendous Machine!"

00:00:29 Speaker 1: Hey, folks, Welcome back to Sports Dot MP three, the sports adjacent podcast that explores the true stories, forgotten context, and sometimes bizarre circumstances behind the most iconic sounds in sports. On today's episode, we'll be diving into the story of one of the greatest athletes in history and almost definitively the single greatest sporting animal of all time. Though I'll admit I'm not well versed in greyhound racing lore, so apologies if there are any greyhound racing super fans listening to this and saying, I can't believe he's disrespecting Sir Zoom Zealot's legacy like that, getting back on track, pun intended. Secretariat, also known as Big Red due to his large stature and bright red chestnut colored hair, was an American thoroughbred racehorse that to this day holds a legacy that to many, will remain untouchable forever. When Secretariat secured the Triple crown in nineteen seventy three, winning the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Steaks in the same season as a three year old, it was the first time a racehorse had accomplished the rare feat in twenty five years. What was and still is equally, if not more impressive, is the fact that Secretariat set records for the fastest ever time, and not just one of the three races, but all three, and those times they still have not been broken fifty two years later. So I'll be exploring American horse racing's most iconic SoundBite of all time, Chick Anderson's narration of Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes in nineteen seventy three to secure the triple crown and cap off the single greatest season the sport has ever seen. Without further ado, Let's get right into it, and to do that, I have to talk a little bit about unbreakable sports records. If you were to research the most unbreakable sports records, results would vary, though I would argue that most probably fall under the broad category of what I call volume. For instance, in the basketball world, Wilt Chamberlain scoring one hundred points in a game and Lebron James scoring fifty thousand career points and counting are two records often described as unbreakable. One was accomplished in a single game, the other over twenty two seasons and technically twenty three. If you count this year. One is about the pinnacle of performance in a single game, the other the result of years of sustained success and seemingly superhuman durability to not get injured. And yet both records are about totals the total number of points in a game and career aka the volume of their scoring. The same principle holds true for many other sports unbreakable records, like Emmett Smith's eighteen thousand, three hundred and fifty five career rushing yards in the NFL, or Jerry Rice's twenty two thousand, eight hundred ninety five receiving yards, Wayne Gretzky's one nine hundred sixty three career assists, Simone Biles winning thirty World Gymnastics gold medals, Michael Phelps winning twenty eight Olympic medals, cal Ripkin junior playing two thousand, six hundred and thirty two consecutive games, and Yukon women's basketball winning one hundred and eleven consecutive games. What does this all mean? Well, on the surface, it's clear that a significant number of what are considered unbreakable sports records tend to require a combination of exceptional talent and otherworldly durability. On a deeper level, however, there's a more interesting trend that emerges, and that's speed. After reading dozens of articles and watching one too many videos about sports records that won't be broken, something began to stand out, or rather, something was missing. Sprinting, running, and racing, all assortments of sports that at their core are about being faster than everyone else, don't end up making a lot of these lists. Jesse Owens, Carl Lewis, Hussein Bolt, Shelley Ann, Fraser Price, Florence Griffith, Joyner, and Michael Johnson a collection of some of the greatest sprinters of all time, most of whom set world records while competing, are never on these lists. Now there are some explanations, like footwear and track surface technology improving over time, allowing athletes to run faster purely due to factors outside of their control. For instance, while Usain Bolt was running with cleats expertly designed to propel him forward and bounce off a track made out of rubber fibers when he set a yet to be beaten nine point five eight second one hundred meter dash, Jesse Owens, several decades earlier, was racing in the modern day equivalent of dress shoes with nails underneath them on a dirt track. Plus there's the fact that sports science, athlete recovery, training, and strengthening programs have all dramatically improved to the point where modern day high schoolers are running just as fast as gold medallists from decades earlier. Seriously, but there's one more nuanced point, which is that sprinters and runners are competing with each other, not against each other. Let me put it this way. Other sports have similarly seen improvements and technology, technique, training, and science, but those athletes are competing directly against one another. They guard each other on the court, line up against each other on the line, and these collective boosts and performance and ability are enjoyed by all the players in a league, meaning that the overall level of competition stays relatively the same even with these improvements. A wide receiver and cornerback in the NFL both probably enjoy a lot of benefits compared to fifty years ago, but they both enjoy them, so it's a little bit more equal. Sprinters, on the other hand, they're racing against time. Yes, they're racing the people lined up next to them on the track, but in terms of records, they're always whittling the seconds down lower and lower, improving times that happened before because the athletes that set those records didn't have access to all these modern day improvements. Usain Bolts one hundred meters sprint record of nine point five eight seconds in two thousand and nine time is the current world record, and the other twenty four fastest times in history have occurred within the last twenty years. When Jesse Owens set the world record in nineteen thirty six, his time was ten point two seconds. The last place finisher in the men's one hundred meters dash at this year's USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships ran a ten point one three point oh seven seconds faster than Owen's world record setting time. So why am I harping on and on about how we're getting faster and faster over time. Well, it's to highlight the absolute absurdity of Secretariat, the fastest horse in modern history, who, despite racing more than fifty years ago and lacking all of the modern improvements in technology, training and nutrition, still holds the record for the fastest time at the Belmont Stakes. Preakness Stakes and the Kentucky Derby. So apologies for focusing so much on the broad picture of breakable and unbreakable sports records, but it's hard to stress the significance of Secretariat's acomplishments without tying it into the larger sports ecosystem, especially because we're talking about horse racing. And yes, that was a slight shot at horse racing. Don't worry though, the horses won't understand. But enough of that, let's get to Secretariat. Okay, So, American horse racing has a few nuances compared to other sports. First of all, it's a bunch of humans riding animals. Secondly, the most prestigious races are reserved for three year old Thoroughbred horses. And then there's the selective breeding aspect. Thoroughbred race horses can trace their lineages more accurately than any twenty three meter database could ever hope for. In short racehorse owners and breeders have a lot of horses, but typically one leading sire, a male that has great genetics aka was really fast, and they'll have that horse mate with mares or female horses that have great genetics too. Occasionally, different horse owners would negotiate full sharing agreements with each other, basically arranging for one of their studs to mate with one or two of the other owner's mares over a year or two. Then once the foles were produced, the two owners would flip a coin to determine who gets first choice of the offspring produced by the arrangement. For example, if a stud mated with two mares over a two year period, the coin toss winner would have first choice of the two foals berthed in the first year. The second fole would then go to the coin toss loser, who would then get the first choice of the foles produced the second year, with the second one being given to the coin toss winner. If a full sharing arrangement resulted in just one foal for the first year and two two for the second, the coin toss winner would walk away with two because they'd get the only one from that first year and then the second choice from the second year. But if there were two foals produced the first year and only one the second year, the coin toss loser would walk away with two foals because they would get the second choice from the first year and then the only one the next year. If you ever feel particularly unlucky. You should be thankful you're not Ogden Phipps, because he, as the owner of Bold Ruler, North America's leading sire from nineteen sixty three to nineteen sixty nine, entered into a full sharing arrangement with Penny Schenery in nineteen sixty eight. Penny's father, Christopher Schenery, had recently fallen ill, resulting in Penny stepping up to lead his stables operations. The first year of the arrangement would see Penny send two mayors for breeding, one named Something Royal, the other named hay Steve Matelda. The two would flip a coin, with the winner getting first choice of the foles produced. In the first year of the arrangement, in the spring of nineteen sixty nine, there were two foals berthed, a Colt or young male horse, and a Philly or young female horse. For the second round of breeding, Penny sent Something Royal again, and instead of Hasty Matilda, a different mayor named Cicada. By the time the all important coin toss was set to commence, both owners already knew that Bold Ruler and Cicada had failed to conceive, meaning that the quote unquote winner of the coin toss would actually end up with only one full their choice between the Colt and Philly birthed in nineteen sixty nine. The loser of the coin toss would get whichever full the winner didn't select from those two, and then the only full produced in nineteen seventy between Something Royal and Bold Ruler. So, as I was saying, Ogden Phipps was quite unlucky as he won the coin toss but really lost because Penny would ultimately get the colt conceived by Bold Ruler and Something Royal in nineteen seventy, a colt that turned out to be Secretariat. A race horse's third year of existence is its most important, at least to us humans, and that's because the three biggest American horse races are for third year Thoroughbreds horses still race earlier, and their earlier races are actually often used as indicators to see if it's worth training them for a third year, because it's really expensive to train them, and sometimes they decide it's better off to have them start breeding or do other things instead of pay for that costly third year, especially if they're not fast. Secretariat's second year showed signs of greatness, and he was already a bit of a mini celebrity in the horse racing world before his legendary third year, since the young Horse's second year saw him win seven of his nine starts and earn four hundred and fifty six thousand, four hundred and four dollars in the process, the equivalent of roughly three and a half million dollars today. Secretariat also won not only the Champion two year Old Male award in the Eclipse Awards, the most prestigious American horse racing awards show, by the way, but also the Horse of the Year as a juvenile. As promising as that second year was, even the wildest expectations would fall short of what Secretariat would accomplish in reality less than a year later, all of which culminated at the Belmont Stakes in nineteen seventy three, where an eager, borderline obsessive anticipation suffocated the event as people around the world tuned in to watch or hear if Secretariat would win the race and become the first horse in twenty five years to win the Triple Crown, as he had already won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes not long before. By the end of the race, even those who thought Secretariat would win were shell shocked, stunned, and speechless as they witnessed the most dominant single race in horse racing history. Okay, I lied, not everyone was speechless, like the sportscaster is getting paid to narrate the race, one of whom was Chick Anderson, a legendary race caller whose description of Secretariat as moving like a tremendous machine remains one of the most iconic race calls of all time. And just for some slight context, a length means a horse length, and it's used in race calls to help visualize how far ahead or behind a horse is from another. So the leading horse being six lengths ahead means you could line up six horses end to end and that would be the size of the gap between that horse and the one behind it. And lastly, for comparison's sake, a pretty sizable dominant wind for a horse might be twelve lengths, So just spare that in mind. 00:15:16 Speaker 2: Then the second a minute, it's a long way back to my gallon, and twice a prince they're on the turn. Its Secretariat is blazing alone. The first three cards of a mile and one O nine and four fifth Secretariat is brightening now he is moving like a tremendous machine. Secretariat by wuld Secretariot by fourteen life on the turn. Tam is dropping back. It looks like they'll catch him to day as my gallont Is Vice the Prince are both coming up to him now, but Secretariat is all alone. He's out there almost the sixteenth of a mile away from the rest of the harpist secretariats in a petition that has been happy of the care He's hanging the step. Secretariat age is wheeled by eighteen length and now her coping seven my fallible, who's got the third? They're in the set. Secretariat has opened a twenty two length leads. He is going to lead the triple crown winner here from Secretariat to the wire. An unbelievable, an amazing performance. He hits the finish twenty five lengths in front. It going to be back of forbe second my ballo third Private files forth and Sam who had it today dropped back to kill. An amazing, unbelievable performance by this miracle heart and looked at Miss tweeting she happened the time of her life. She and Lucia Laura formed the part magnificent animal who is today run the most sensational Belmont stake in the history of this race. Secretariat has accomplished the unbelievable task of breaking the mile and a half record by twos and three fifth seconds. That is a record that may stand for. 00:17:01 Speaker 1: Only a few minutes. After the race ended. Chick Anderson reviewed the videotape of Secretariat's glorious final sprint and he realized that his earlier calls were actually incorrect. He said, quote I said twenty five, it could conceivably have been more end Quote Anderson was correct, because after experts examined the video footage and trackside photographs, they were able to determine that Secretariat had won the race by a full thirty one lengths. The camera operator of the race had to instantly pan back to the rest of the field once Secretariat crossed the finish line, because if he didn't, the screen would have shown an empty finish line for a full five seconds before the other horses came into view. In short, it was a jaw dropping display of dominance, and even more so when you considered that many critics were of the opinion that Secretariat didn't have the stamina or endurance to win the Belmonts, which, at one and a half miles long, is the longest of the three Triple Crown races. Shortly after becoming the first horse in twenty five years to win the Triple Crown, during the week of June tenth, nineteen seventy three, Secretariat became the first athlete to appear on the covers of Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated, all in the same week. I could go on and on about just how popular he became. I mean, he literally had a movie made about him, which in horse terms, is about as famous as you can get. The more interesting question, and one you've probably been wondering, is what exactly made Secretariat so great? And the best way to explain that is actually by talking about Michael Phelps. Seriously, Modern horse racing times have improved in pretty similar manners to sprinters, though there's a slight difference, which is that overall, the worst or slowest horses in a modern day race were significantly faster than the slowest horses from Secretariat's time. Yet, unlike sprinting, where world records have continuously been beaten, every few years. Up until the late two thousands, when Usain Bolt came onto the scene, the fastest race horse speeds have remained relatively unbroken, and that's thanks to Secretariat. So what made him so different and be faster than all of these current modern day horses who have improved training and nutrition, Well, he was, in essence, the Michael Phelps of horses. If scientists designed a swimmer, they'd probably create a replica of Michael Phelps. He's six foot four, has a long torso, short legs, a massive wingspan, large palms, and large feet, all of which are the perfect dimensions for the idea eel swimmers structure. For reference, he has the torso of a six foot eight man and the legs of someone eight inches shorter. He also has tons of double joints, including a double jointed chest, which I'm not even going to get into because that's really confusing even having read about it. These double joints helped propel him in the water, But the trait that makes him stand out so much from the others is something else entirely. Phelps has a genetic trait that causes his body to produce half the lactic acid of a normal human, lactic acid builds up during exercise and makes your muscles sore and tired, so Phelps producing half as much gives him an absurd advantage in terms of stamina and endurance. In a similar manner, Secretariat was built like an ideal race horse. In addition to being very tall and muscular, his chest was so large that he needed a custom made girth just to fit him. He was also considered exceptionally well balanced, possessed almost impeccable biomechanics, and had almost perfect equine conformation, which means his skeletal structure, muscular distribution, and body proportions were all as efficient as possible. In other words, his body was built for racing in the same way Phelps's was for swimming. And while Secretariat didn't have phelps genetic trait that reduces lactic acid build up, he had something even better. When a veterinarian performed a necropsy on Secretariat after he passed away in nineteen eighty nine, he discovered that the legendary horse's heart was quite unique. An average thoroughbred race horse's heart weighs about eight and a half pounds, but when the veterinarian got a look at Secretariat's heart. He was flabbered acid. He didn't weigh Secretariat's heart, mostly because the horse was given the rare honors of being buried whole instead of just the head, heart and hoofs as is the tradition for winning racehorse burials. And I have no comment on that. I'm still trying to get that visual out of my head. But the vet did estimate that the weight of Secretariat's heart was I kid you not, roughly twenty two pounds, or two and a half times that of the average thoroughbred racehorse. You'd think that such an enlarged heart would be a medical emergency, but in the words of the doctor himself, quote, we just stood there and stunned silence. We couldn't believe it. The heart was perfect, there were no problems with it. It was just this huge engine end quote. While there are some disputes about the legitimacy of these claims, he definitely had at the very least a pretty damn big heart, and because it was proportional and healthy, it allowed him to pump more blood and therefore more oxygen to his muscles, resulting in a massive increase in overall stamina and endurance a big reason why he was able to continue pushing faster and faster while other horses tire it out. It's hard to think of a fitting conclusion for this episode, or one deep insight that ties it all together. I could take the Disney route and say that Secretariat was one of the most dominant racehorses of all time because of his heart, but that's too much of a fairy tale. I could go down the Mary Shelley route, arguing that Secretariat was basically like Frankenstein's Monster, a horse designed in a lab by mad scientists that was given a supersized heart in order to dominate racetracks and terrorize other horses. Maybe the best conclusion, however, is one that doesn't draw on other comparisons. After all, Secretariat was, by all accounts, a once in a lifetime specimen that fully lived up to his potential, and there's no better evidence of his greatness than time, or rather times more than fifty years after his historic triple crown, new waves of race horses, backed by better training and nutrition, have could impeded on the same tracks year after year after year, and yet none have bested his record setting times from nineteen seventy three. So what better way to end this than with chick Anderson's bold proclamation that to this day holds as truth. 00:24:17 Speaker 2: Secretariot has accomplished the unbelievable task of breakings a mile and a half record by two and three fifths seconds. That is a record that. 00:24:28 Speaker 1: May stand for rep as always. I'm Will Gatchel and this has been Sports Dot MP three. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode, and be sure to tune in next Thursday for a new one. Have a wonderful weekend, Stay safe out there, and I'll see you next week or I guess you'll hear me next week. Peace. 00:25:15 Speaker 2: I don't don't, but it does not a contact. 00:25:20 Speaker 1: Don't don't