LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It is now accepted legend that Secretariat was a freak of nature, a beast of a racehorse whose name became synonymous with greatness. But when Secretariat was loaded into post 10 for the 99th Kentucky Derby on May 5, 1973, at Churchill Downs, he was no sure thing to win – let alone go on and become the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years and an American sports icon for all time. “People were worried because he’d gotten beat in the Wood Memorial,” Ron Turcotte recently recalled in a phone interview from his home in Grand Falls, New Brunswick, Canada. “And there were some questions about him getting the distance because he was by Bold Ruler.” Turcotte was the jockey aboard Secretariat that beautiful spring day. Now 81, he is the lone surviving member among the humans most closely associated with the colt. Trainer Lucien Laurin died in 2000 and owner Penny Chenery Tweedy died in 2017. Secretariat himself died in 1989. Secretariat had been voted the Horse of the Year in the U.S. as a 2-year-old in 1972. After wintering at Hialeah in Florida, his prep schedule for the Derby went smoothly at first, as he easily won the Bay Shore and Gotham at Aqueduct in New York. But then, inexplicably, he finished a dull third behind his Laurin-trained stablemate Angle Light and the California standout Sham in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. It was later discovered that the colt had a large abscess in his mouth. “Once he got treated for that and got back to himself, I was very confident he would win,” said Turcotte. “I was very pleased with his last workout before the race.” :: KENTUCKY DERBY 2023: Derby Watch, point standings, prep schedule, news, and more Bold Ruler was known as a sire of miler types, which sowed seeds of doubt about Secretariat stretching out to the famed distance of “a mile and a quarter without any water.” Accordingly, the stable coupling of Angle Light (No. 1) and Secretariat (No. 1A) was the post-time choice at 3-2, which, given what we know now, were robust odds and nothing close to what an overwhelming favorite would be. Sham was a close second choice at 5-2. “I told the owner and trainer that I would just gallop him down the stretch the first quarter of a mile,” Turcotte recalled. “When I came out of the gate, that’s what I did, and we were last under the wire the first time around. I didn’t mean to be that far back, but as it turned out, it was a perfect place to be.” An honest pace was developing up front, with the noted sprinter Shecky Greene opening a clear lead on the backstretch and Sham not far back. As they hit the far turn, Sham and jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. moved to challenge, eventually going to the front nearing the quarter pole, but by then Secretariat was looming. The hulking chestnut colt, equipped with the royal blue-and-white block blinkers of the Chenery family’s Meadow Stable, had been making up ground in steady fashion with a looping outside rally, and as they straightened for home, the race had come down to him and Sham. “I started picking up horses on the first turn,” said Turcotte. “Down the backside I moved up to fifth, and around the turn I passed all the other horses except Sham. I saw that Laffit Pincay had a lot of horse.” In midstretch, “I reached back and tapped him a couple times with the whip, and shooo, he just took off,” said Turcotte. “Then I put my stick down and he win by 2 1/2 lengths, very easily.” The winning time was 1:59 2/5, establishing a record that still stands 50 years later. Two weeks later, he would win the Preakness at Pimlico with an eye-catching last-to-first move in the first turn, and three weeks after that came his unforgettable 31-length romp in the Belmont Stakes, making him the ninth overall Triple Crown winner but the first since Citation in 1948. Many years later, in June 2012, the Maryland Racing Commission, presented with unimpeachable forensic evidence, agreed to officially lower Secretariat’s winning time in the Preakness from 1:54 2/5 to 1:53, breaking the 1971 record of 1:54 set by Canonero II. Combined with his winning time of 2:24 in the Belmont, Secretariat ran the fastest times in all three Triple Crown races, an almost unimaginable feat that gives statistical credence to his legend. And what a legend it has become. Secretariat stands among the immortals, like Babe Ruth in baseball, Muhammad Ali in boxing, and Michael Jordan in basketball. His widespread popularity in 1973 – when the Vietnam War was still raging and Watergate would soon become a crisis – helped soothe the woes of a torn nation. Between his Preakness and Belmont wins, he was featured on the covers of Newsweek, Time, and Sports Illustrated, the most accurate barometers of fame in that era. :: DRF Kentucky Derby Package: Save on PPs, Clocker Reports, Betting Strategies, and more. Seth Hancock, who at age 23 had put together the $6.08 million syndication deal that brought Secretariat to Claiborne Farm for his post-racing stud career, said in a 1999 ESPN Sports Classic documentary: “Our psyche was a little bruised at that time. This horse was a big, uplifting thing for us all.” “We always need sports heroes,” Jay Hovdey, the former longtime Daily Racing Form executive columnist, said on the same documentary. “It takes our minds off other things. Secretariat gave people a sort of a scandal-proof celebrity to look at and enjoy without the messy residue of politics.” Comparisons to bygone racing greats such as Man o’ War, Seabiscuit, and Citation became commonplace, but as the years passed, other horses have joined the discussion – Spectacular Bid, Cigar, American Pharoah, and maybe a couple more. Secretariat did lose five times from 21 starts, including stunning defeats to Onion in the Whitney Stakes at Saratoga and Prove Out in the Woodward at Belmont Park following his Triple Crown sweep, although those upsets did not preclude him from being named Horse of the Year again in 1973. But it’s the memories of his Derby victory, followed by the other two Triple Crown races, that supersede all. Even though he had been Horse of the Year the previous season, the Derby was what catapulted him into rarefied air. “It was a beautiful race,” said Turcotte. “I thought the Triple Crown would be downhill from there.” Turcotte had won the 1972 Derby aboard Riva Ridge, also for Meadow Stable and Laurin, but there was something a little different about this one, said Turcotte. “I had greater emotion after this one for several reasons,” he said, explaining that avenging the Wood defeat was foremost among them. “When I found out what it was that held him back in the Wood was the infection under his upper lip, that gave me a lot of confidence. Plus now I could tell the owner and trainer he could go any distance we asked of him. I also was the first jockey to win the Derby back-to-back in 71 years,” since Jimmy Winkfield won in 1901-02. “It was all very satisfying to me.” Turcotte has been wheelchair-bound since 1978, when he was injured in a Belmont Park spill. His life has not been easy, but his role in the accomplishments of the horse fondly recalled as “Big Red” remain indelible. Many books and lengthy articles have been written about Secretariat, most notably the 1975 benchmark “Secretariat: The Making of a Champion,” by the late Bill Nack, and the 2010 Disney movie “Secretariat” starring Diane Lane as Penny Tweedy is one of the most renowned horse-racing films of all time. And with the 50th anniversary of his Derby triumph now upon us, dozens of media outlets are producing retrospectives, rekindling the memory of a horse who captured the public’s fancy like few others. Four horses followed Secretariat in sweeping the Triple Crown in the half-century that has passed – Seattle Slew (1977) and Affirmed (1978) weren’t long after, while American Pharoah (2015) and Justify (2018) came long after. But, for whatever reason, none of them before or after Secretariat carry the same pizzazz. His record clockings in all three races is perhaps an objective reason for his enduring popularity, but it also was the time, circumstances, and manner in which he raced into the public’s consciousness that have left him widely acknowledged as the greatest of all Thoroughbreds. “It seems hard to believe that 50 years have passed since he won the Derby,” said Turcotte. “He was the best, no doubt in my mind. And people will go on remembering him forever.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.