Just for a change of pace, what with this being the 50th anniversary of you-know-who winning the 1973 Belmont Stakes by a country mile, this reporter will step aside and let history do the talking through the eyes of the writers who were there on that June 9 afternoon.
We'll start with a pre-race column from the inimitable Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times, whose flavor in great horses leaned toward Citation. It was Citation's 1948 Triple Crown achievement Secretariat was trying to emulate, after a drought of 25 years.
"Now it's the week of the Belmont Stakes and Secretariat, the horse, has been on the cover of Time, Newsweek, The Blood Horse, Sports Illustrated, and he looks like a $6-million steal," Murray wrote. "His stud book will be busier than a sultan's. If he loses the Belmont, he's going to take more money with him than a bank president absconding to Rio."
As we know, the race came and went quickly, at least for Secretariat, who was performing not only for the 69,138 customers at Belmont, but also for a national CBS television audience that topped out at a 52 share, which means more than half the homes in these United States were watching. Shirley Povich, the peerless Washington Post columnist, was in the Belmont press box savoring every furlong.
"This was Secretariat running the race on his own terms, with Turcotte laying no demanding whip on his flanks, and still riding high in the saddle," Povich wrote. "It was Secretariat giving his boy a joy ride, with no openings to look for, no tight quarters anywhere."
Red Smith, Povich's Pulitzer Prize-winning colleague, probably was sitting nearby.
"Secretariat was cheered in the post parade, cheered as he entered the gate, and when he caught and passed Sham on the backstretch the exultant thunders raised gooseflesh," Smith wrote. "At the finish, the crowd surged toward the winner's circle, fists brandished high. After 25 years, America's racing fans had a sovereign to wear the Triple Crown."
It was the kind of moment a sportswriter lives for, an athletic effort that requires comparisons beyond the immediate time and place.
"The 105th Belmont Stakes will rank among sport's most spectacular performances, right up there with Joe Louis' one-round knockout of Max Schmeling and the Olympic feats of Jessie Owens, Jean-Claude Killy and Mark Spitz." —Whitney Tower, Sports Illustrated.
"It was a demonstration of brute strength and blinding speed that was hard to believe and ranks among the greatest, if not the greatest, races ever run." —Ray Ayres, United Press International.
"There's a job opening at Belmont Park for Noah Webster. They're still trying to find a word to describe Secretariat." —Bob Cooper, Associated Press.
Bill Nack, later to be Secretariat's biographer, was covering the 1973 Belmont Stakes for the Long Island paper Newsday. It was Nack's inclination to follow the horse from the moment he left the winner's circle.
"Trainers gathered in the testing barn," Nack wrote, "and looked at the colt as Ed Sweat washed him off with water, scraped him with a water scrapper, and the trainers laughed when George (Charlie) Davis—the colt's regular exercise boy who was holding him while Sweat scraped—kissed the colt on his nose."
Thank goodness for such passionate, creative eyes and ears with bylines that put the rest of us next to Secretariat's masterpiece. Every racing fan alive at the time remembers where they were and who they were with as they watched in awestruck joy at the sight of a single horse separating himself not only from the enfeebled opposition but also from nearly every other signpost in the history of the sport.
At the time, this pilgrim was navigating his first year at the track, working in the publicity office at Hollywood Park and glued to a TV set. The dismantling of Sham was hard to watch for those of us who reveled in his Santa Anita Derby (G1) victory earlier that year. But there was no doubt that nothing among the 3-year-old class was ever going to be a match for Secretariat.
Secretariat was one of 24,361 North American foals of 1970. So was Carry the Banner, a son of Advocator owned by the colorful Harvey Furgatch and trained by Stephen Ferraro. With the buzz of the Belmont still in the air, Carry the Banner won Hollywood's Argonaut Handicap (G2) later that day for 3-year-olds at a mile and one-sixteenth on the main track.
"I'm sure I saw the Belmont at some point, since we were all such fans of Secretariat," Ferraro said. "But I was pretty preoccupied with my colt."
Ferraro, retired now from training, keeps his hand in as owner of the 2-year-old Arrogate colt Liberal Arts in partnership with his son, Evan Ferraro, Fasig-Tipton's director of marketing. Liberal Arts was recently third in his debut at Churchill Downs.
"Yes, I suppose we could have gone back for the Belmont to try for second," Ferraro said with a laugh. "But the Argonaut was a big deal for us. Carry the Banner was a temperamental, wonderfully talented colt. It's fun to remember that day."
On Saturday's occasion of the 155th running of the Belmont Stakes, intersecting with Secretariat's golden moment of 50 years ago, it seems only fitting to give the last word to the guy who was first to alert the world to the oncoming red tide.
Charles Hatton's coverage of Secretariat in the Daily Racing Form caught fire during the summer of 1972 at Saratoga and continued unabated through the rest of his 2-year-old campaign, for which the colt was named Horse of the Year.
"During the early stages of his races, crowds of 30,000 or 40,000 stood silent as so many ghosts," Hatton wrote at the end of the '72 season. "The tension mounted as he awaited the instant to strike. Suddenly, he swooped down on his hapless foes with a paralyzing burst, like a hawk scattering a barnyard of chickens, and pandemonium rocked the stands."
In the wake of the pandemonium that rocked Belmont Park after Secretariat's Belmont Stakes, Hatton trotted out zingers like, "He could not have moved faster if he had fallen off the grandstand roof," and, "You couldn't find the other horses with two pairs of binoculars."
Then, having enjoyed his victory lap, Hatton saved his best line for a sober benediction that has attached itself to Secretariat for eternity, declaring:
"His only point of reference is himself."
