Early on March 30, 1970, a large, chestnut-coloured colt was born in Doswell, Virginia. Aside from owners, trainers and those in the know on the thoroughbred horseracing circuit, it was an event of little consequence. That wobbly-legged colt would grow into one of the twentieth century’s greatest athletes, a master athlete that three years later, on a Long Island, New York racetrack, would set a standard in horseracing never to be forgotten.
“It was a performance for the ages, growing more mythic as time goes on,” wrote Melissa Hoppert in her June 10, 2023, New York Times story titled, ‘Secretariat’s Legend Rolls on Like, Well, a Tremendous Machine.’ “Having won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes in record fashion, Secretariat rocketed out of the starting gate on June 9, 1973 — his best start yet — and never let up. He moved “like a tremendous machine,” as the announcer Chic Anderson put it, and crushed his competition by a whopping 31 lengths to win the Belmont Stakes on an uncomfortably warm but utterly joyous afternoon at Belmont Park.”
Of all the joyous people at Belmont Park that day 50 years ago, none was more so than Ron Turcotte, who rode Secretariat into history. For the soft-spoken New Brunswicker from Drummond, near Grand Falls, who, a few weeks before, had ridden him to victory in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, setting track records that still stand, it was the thrill of a lifetime. The winning of the Belmont Stakes made Secretariat the first Triple Crown winner since Citation’s victory in 1948. It also changed Ron Turcotte’s life. From that day on, his name would be synonymous with the horse he lovingly called Big Red.
Turcotte started his career as a jockey at Toronto’s Woodbine Racetrack in 1960. By January 1972, when he first saw Secretariat at Miami’s Hialeah racetrack, he had become one of North America’s most successful jockeys. When he first mounted Secretariat and rode him around the track a few days later, Turcotte’s instincts told him the two-year-old underneath him was no ordinary horse.
“Secretariat was a remarkable animal,” he says. “God made the perfect horse when he made him.”
In horse racing, three of the most prestigious races in America are the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. Together they’re called the Triple Crown of racing. A horse that wins one of these races is doing well. A horse that wins two is considered outstanding. A horse that wins all three instantly becomes a legend.
At the start of the first two Triple Crown races, Turcotte purposely held Secretariat back. He wanted to ensure the stallion had enough speed to take him through the backstretch. In each race, the strategy worked, and he was planning to do the same for the Belmont. But Secretariat had plans of his own.
Bang!
When the starting pistol fired, Secretariat surged forward, a tidal wave of muscle and spirit. Instantly, he was out of the gate, thundering down the mile-and-a-half track, setting his own pace with his powerful 24-foot strides. Turcotte knew he had to abandon his strategy and trust the instinct and intelligence of the master athlete beneath him.
Two minutes and 24 seconds later, Secretariat blazed across the finish line 31 lengths ahead of Sham, Twice a Prince, My Gallant and Private Smiles. In the 156-year history of the Belmont Stakes, no horse has ever run faster.
“It seemed they were a mile away,” Turcotte remembers. “Then I looked up and saw 2:20 on the teletimer and I didn’t have far to go. It was an incredible feeling. He was just whistling through the air.”
But it wasn’t just Secretariat whistling through the air. So too, was the spirit and courage of the man astride him. Five years later, on the same track, Ron Turcotte would call upon that spirit and courage when Flag of Leyte Gulf, the filly he was riding, stumbled and went down. Paralyzed by the fall, Turcotte hasn’t walked since.
Like his memories of Secretariat’s remarkable run 50 years ago, when Big Red moved “like a tremendous machine,” Ron Turcotte’s spirit and courage remain strong.
“The accident made me more religious,” he says, “I never ask, ‘Why me?’ but rather, ‘Why not me?'”
Editor’s Note: The 1973 Belmont Stakes was the 105th running of the Belmont Stakes. Secretariat won by a record-breaking 31 lengths in front of 69,138 spectators. Click here to see the race.
