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6:24 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), on 5/5/12. That’s what you want to know, and that’s what we give you. That’s right, the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby is set for Saturday, May 5, 2012, with a post time of 6:24 pm ET. Not 6:23. Not 6:25. And certainly not 6:30. And don’t even think of suggesting 6:26!!! Now that we’ve got that bit of pertinent information out of the way for you, let’s turn our attention to a subject that comes up every single year around Kentucky Derby time: Secretariat, the 1973 Triple Crown Champion, the greatest racehorse that ever lived. For those of you too young to remember and who do not have an affinity for the history of thoroughbred racing, who may only know of Secretariat through the Disney motion picture starring Diane Lane of a couple years back, I’m going to share with you the story of Secretariat and the lead up to his record smashing performance in the Kentucky Derby of 1973. First of all, Secretariat was not your typical good three-year-old that people felt had a good shot at winning the Run for the Roses. Even people old enough forget that he was quite possibly the greatest 2-year-old of all-time, a juvenile that could quite possibly, if allowed to, defeat 3 and 4-year-old horses. He was first in 8 of 9 races, but disqualified in one race and placed second. The only time he was out of the money was in his maiden race on July 4, 1972, a 5 ½ furlong sprint that saw him get nearly knocked to the ground by another horse out of the gate and get walled in by the field early. He found room along the rail late, and rallied for one of the most impressive 4th place finishes you will ever see, finishing only 1 ½ lengths behind the winner. He won in the slop. He won closing on the outside. He won closing on the rail in traffic. He won against good competition, so much so that more than one trainer said they didn’t want their horse facing him again. He was so good, he was the first horse in history to win Horse of the Year UNANIMOUSLY. He was so good that he was syndicated for a then unheard of $6-plus million BEFORE he ever ran a single race as a three-year-old. Think about this: even though there hadn’t been a Triple Crown Winner in 25 years, since Citation in 1948, Secretariat was an INCREDIBLE 5 to 2 to WIN THE TRIPLE CROWN. So it’s not as if the racing world didn’t know that Secretariat was a one of a kind horse heading into his 3-year-old campaign. They knew full well he was. Yet, that’s what is so amazing about Secretariat. He was that once in a millennium event that you know will be great, and yet STILL exceeds your expectations. But that’s what he did. His first two races at three went as expected, with impressive wins in the Bay Shore and Gotham Stakes. Then came his final Derby prep, the Wood Memorial. He had an abscess on the inside of his lip right where the bit rubbed against it. The public didn’t know about his lip, he finished third, and you would have thought the world was coming to an end. The truth is, the loss in the Wood only made what came next seem all the more amazing, when in fact, what Secretariat did in the Kentucky Derby was simply a repeat of many of his finest performances as a juvenile, only with a much bigger audience and against better competition. Simply put, it was typical for him. Not for any other horse that’s ever lived, though. He broke dead last out of the gate. Again, fans that hadn’t followed him as a 2-year-old and had their money on him thought all was lost. He was still last after a quarter of a mile. Then he started his long, sustained, and measured move along the backstretch at Churchill Downs, picking up horses one by one. By the time they reached the final turn, he was in 5th place. Then he unleashed a furious outside move that swept him into 2nd place, behind only his greatest rival, Sham, at the quarter pole. He drew even with Sham at the 3/16th’s pole, and then pulled away to win by 2 ½ lengths. Simple, right? A pretty standard description of many victories in the Kentucky Derby, don’t you think? Well, you’d be wrong if you did. First of all, his final time of 1:59 ? set a Derby record that, almost 40 years later, no horse has come close to matching (an interesting side note here: Sham’s final time would have been 1:59 ?. Coming into 1973’s Derby no horse had EVER broken two minutes in the Kentucky Derby. Almost 40 years later, one other horse has ever broken two minutes, and that horse just BARELY. So, think about that: the two, TWO, fastest Kentucky Derbys in all of history were run ON THE SAME DAY!!! That makes Sham just about the unluckiest thoroughbred that ever lived!!!). Secondly, Secretariat was three and four wide on each turn, meaning he gave up considerable ground. Finally, and read this carefully, he ran each successive quarter mile of the race FASTER, something no other horse has EVER done anywhere in the world at a distance over one mile. For casual fans, that last feat may sound like not that big of a deal, but believe me, of all the otherworldly things he did on May 5, 1973, running progressively faster is the most amazing. Do your own research. Be thorough, meticulous, and you’ll find that HORSES JUST DON’T DO THAT! But Secretariat did. But astoundingly, the best was yet to come, though after Secretariat turned the racing world upside down in the 1973 Kentucky Derby, absolutely NO ONE would have believed you if you had said so.
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