At this point, there is reason to feel a little sorry for the 3-year-olds of 2023 scrambling for attention and a place in the field for the 149th Kentucky Derby (G1) May 6. They're doing their best, trying their hardest, but every time they look around someone somewhere has turned the clock back 50 years to wax rhapsodically on the subject of Secretariat, and what he did, what he ate, and what he thought about on that particular day, half a century ago.
For instance, on April 7, 1973, Secretariat was given a very measured, one-mile workout under a snug hold from Ron Turcotte that was timed in 1:33 2/5. Wait, no, that was the Gotham Stakes (G2), a grade 2 event around one turn at Aqueduct Racetrack. It only looked like a workout. The clocking equaled the track record set five years earlier by the filly Plucky Pan. Both Secretariat and Plucky Pan were by Bold Ruler.
Of passing interest to the growing Secretariat fan club some 50 years ago was the 36th running of the Santa Anita Derby (G1), presented Saturday, March 31, 1973, to a crowd of 49,564. Those were quaint, bygone days. No Sunday racing. Exotics began and ended with the Daily Double. Men shaved. The Pretense colt Sham was beginning to make threatening noises—a win in the restricted Santa Catalina Stakes drew nods—but the real star of the West Coast was Linda's Chief, a fiery son of Chieftain who was in the hands of the New York expatriate, Bobby Frankel.
There was no love lost between Frankel and the Sham family—trainer Frank "Pancho" Martin and owner Sigmund Sommer. They all brought their big city snarls to the peaceful L.A. suburbs, thereby turning the Santa Anita Derby into a grudge-fest worth a whole lot more than its $100,000 purse.
In their previous encounter, Linda's Chief had led Sham and company on a merry chase to win the San Felipe Handicap at a mile and one-sixteenth. That assured the Frankel colt of favoritism in the Santa Anita Derby. Martin vowed that Linda's Chief would not go unchallenged on the lead, and to that end, he entered Sommer's Knightly Dawn, a decent enough son of Sir Gaylord who would have been north of 30-1 had he not been coupled with Sham.
In an interview on film several years later, Frankel confirmed that he was right to have smelled a rat.
"I was a little suspicious, but then you don't think those things are really gonna happen," Frankel said. "The horse called Knightly Dawn, they had Jorge Tejeira named on him. It so happened he drew right outside of me, that horse. And the morning of the race they switched riders and put Milo on, who wasn't doing that well at the time. Then I got a lot more suspicious."
Milo Valenzuela, famed for his work aboard Kelso, was a hard-used 38, pulling serious weight and scuffling for mounts. Getting thrown a bone by Pancho Martin was worth the trouble, even if Valenzuela's role was to torment Linda's Chief.
"At the start, they all broke pretty good," Frankel said. "In fact, Knightly Dawn broke a little out, if I remember. Then he just angled him in and sawed off Linda's Chief. Going into the first turn, instead of laying first or second Linda's Chief was laying last."
Well, fourth, actually, but Frankel got everything else right. After throwing a shoulder to the favorite, Valenzuela went to the whip and fried a first half-mile in :46 around the clubhouse turn, then retreated from view on the far turn as Ancient Title, Sham, and Linda's Chief pressed on.
(Beaten an official 40 lengths, Knightly Dawn resurfaced at Churchill Downs to win a race on the Derby undercard, then took the Jersey Derby at Garden State Park at the end of May.)
At the finish of the Santa Anita Derby, Sham was 2 1/2 lengths clear of a stubborn Linda's Chief in 1:47 for the nine furlongs, equaling Lucky Debonair's stakes record. While Frankel boiled, Braulio Baeza dismounted from Linda's Chief and claimed foul against the entry, a perfectly allowable protest that had no chance. Sommer spiked the ball with a few juicy epithets, and Sham got the privilege of running against Secretariat.
That happened two weeks later in the Wood Memorial Stakes (G1), a race that temporarily shook the foundations of the sport when Angle Light, entered to ensure an honest pace for Secretariat, kept right on going to beat both his vaunted stablemate and Sham. Then came the Triple Crown. I won't spoil it, just in case.
This year, the Wood Memorial and the Santa Anita Derby will be run on the same day, this Saturday, with the Blue Grass Stakes (G1) at Keeneland added for spice. Todd Pletcher and Brad Cox look predictably tough in New York and Kentucky, while at Santa Anita Tim Yakteen will bring over Practical Move, winner of the San Felipe Stakes (G2), and National Treasure , who was among the 3-year-olds shifted Yakteen's way from Bob Baffert, still banned by Churchill Downs Inc.
Of the other seven trainers with runners at Santa Anita, only a few of them were old enough to have a driver's license in 1973, let alone be in the thick of a world dominated by Secretariat, Sham, and Linda's Chief.
One of those is Richard Mandella, who sends out San Felipe runner-up Geaux Rocket Ride. Mandella was 22 and on his own in March of 1973 when he saddled Elmendorf's Big Spruce in the San Luis Rey Stakes (G1T) at a mile and a half on a rain-soaked Santa Anita grass course. A few weeks earlier, Mandella had been tossed the keys to Big Spruce by his boss, Lefty Nickerson, who packed up the bulk of the stable for New York. Given the spotlight, Mandella watched in delight as Big Spruce won by 10 lengths, with turf titan Cougar II nearly 14 lengths arrears in third.
"Then he came back and almost won the San Juan," Mandella said, summoning the memory of the '73 San Juan Capistrano Invitational Handicap (G1), in which Big Spruce fell a head shy of catching Queen's Hustler. "I remember telling Lefty, one more jump and he wins. Lefty says, 'Dick, they went a mile and three-quarters. How many jumps do you need?'"
At the end of the Santa Anita meet, Mandella took the balance of the Nickerson stable back to New York.
"You know, I was so excited to work in the barn Lefty had, so in awe going to New York, a kid from Beaumont, California..." Mandella said. "I was feeding at Aqueduct when Secretariat won the Derby. There were no TVs, no phones in the barn. I heard about it the next day. It was exciting, sure. But not as exciting as my new job."
Back in early 1973, while Mandella was making his bones with Big Spruce, John Shirreffs was nearing the end of his term of service at Loma Rica Ranch in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range, northeast of Sacramento. Shirreffs will run Skinner back in the Santa Anita Derby on the strength of the colt's steady finish to be third in the San Felipe. Life was good at Loma Rica for the Vietnam vet, handling young Thoroughbreds on their way to the track. The antics of Secretariat & Co. might as well have been taking place on a distant planet.
"It was pretty sheltered there," Shirreffs said. "We went to the Horsemen's Fairgrounds, skiing, and trail riding. That was about it. On Sundays we'd have hot buttered popcorn and watch the Raiders."
Still, it became impossible to keep Secretariat news from even the far corners of the Thoroughbred world.
"I was absolutely following him," Shirreffs said. "I don't remember if it was in Sports Illustrated or another magazine, but I always read about him when I could. My favorite thing was from Lucien Laurin when he was asked about working his horse 46-and-change a couple days before a race. He said, 'I like to give Secretariat a good zinger.'"
Did Skinner get a zinger in preparation for the Santa Anita Derby?
"No, not this week," the trainer replied. "He's doing fine without one."
