On the 50th anniversary of Secretariat’s Triple Crown, the legendary colt’s jockey remembers a performance for the ages in the 1973 Belmont Stakes
Ron Turcotte was Secretariat’s regular rider, partnering the legendary colt for 18 of his 21 career starts, among them all three legs of the Triple Crown – including his iconic 31-length victory 50 years ago in the Belmont Stakes.
Now 81, the Canadian recalls his famous association with the horse generally regarded as the greatest of all time in the history of North American racing.
Here, in his own words, Turcotte recalls what it was like on that historic afternoon in New York when Secretariat smashed the record for a mile and a half with a scarcely feasible clocking of 2:24. He still holds the record time for all three legs of the Triple Crown.
Secretariat was such a magnificent horse. He was such a ham, and yet so capable of doing anything on the racetrack. We were good partners, and we never fought each other. He loved to play. He was lovable. It was love at first sight when I first saw him as a baby when he came in from the farm.
Every morning when I walked down the shed row of Lucien [Laurin, trainer]’s barn, I would take his tongue and shake it like I was shaking someone’s hand and say, ‘Good morning.’ That’s how we would greet each other in the morning, he’d stick his tongue out and I’d shake it.
The Belmont doesn’t seem like 50 years ago. I get to see it on YouTube at times. I watch something and it pops up and I have a look at it again. It’s a refresher – and like I said it doesn’t feel that long.
After he won the Preakness, I actually thought he might need a race in between and I told Lucien – I mentioned a solution, which is run him in the Jersey Derby.
And he told me not to mention that again, that he didn’t intend to run in the Jersey Derby. I said: ‘Well, he’ll be working faster than they’ll run the race, and I ain’t going to get nothing for it! You ain’t going to pick up any money.’
‘You just tend to your business’
Lucien says, ‘you just tend to your business and let me do the managing!’ So I said okay. So I started working him pretty good to get him real tight for the race. I wanted him to be at his peak at the Belmont – and we were darn near his peak at the Belmont.
He was training real good and I was very confident. Whenever I made a move, I knew that it wasn’t taking too much out of him.
I won the Belmont the same way aboard Riva Ridge. I put him on the lead the same way and he galloped the rest of the race. I had my mind made up that I was putting him on the lead. That way, you can control the race better.
I thought I was going to take the lead leaving the gate. But again, there’s getting his feet well under him and getting in stride. But when I saw the other jockey take a hold of their horse to go a mile and a half, I just let my horse run through on the rail and take the lead.
I knew that Sham was going to run with me all the way soI just took a little edge by going to the inside that was saving me going around the first turn. And then Sham collared me right around the first turn and went all the way to the three-quarter pole. I mean, it looked like a match race, and it was kind of a match race.
We were using out horses a lot
But we still had to go a mile and a half. Laffit knew it and I knew it – but we we were using our horses a lot. We were just staying together like that. Then finally something happened to Sham and left me alone in the lead and my horse was striding along, was rolling good under me.
Secretariat was an easy horse to ride. Just a little movement of my hand there, just to indicate where I wanted him to go, and when to pick it up and when to relax and that’s what he was doing.
I kept hearing the hoofbeats from the others getting further and further back – I could hear them fading away. He was just so relaxed the whole way that I knew he would run all day. He was a superhorse.
I looked back only once around the turn when the announcer said he was 22 lengths in front. I just wanted to see what 22 lengths in front looked like. I had to look across the track and that’s when I saw the clock turn 1:59, which was faster than what he ran in the Kentucky Derby.
Watching the timer
The only reason I had turned a little bit was because I was watching the timer and what time it would stop. Every sixteenth of a mile, he was breaking track records all the way throughout the lane.
As I turned for home, I was looking ahead, and I could see the crowd very good. It was like a wild sea … a lot of people were jumping up and down, up and down.
Once I got closer, I could hear them – a lot of them cheering me on. It was something that you don’t see every day. In the Preakness, I remember they were jumping on the fence and Secretariat had never moved and I kept him right there on the fence. He never shied from anything. And so no, it was really a sight to see, all the people jumping up and down.
As I was turning, I saw the clock on the infield board. And it says 1:59. Then I knew that we had the record for the Belmont so I let him run, but I kept watching the tote board all the way down the stretch. There’s two of them there, two toad boards, and they have a timer on them. So I just kept looking there, break a track record every sixteenth of a mile.
He was doing it pretty well on his own. I just shared it with him and I still had a lot of horse when I passed the wire.
Type of horse you’ll never see again
I was amazed with that horse, all along. But then, he was doing something that you’d never seen before, and will probably never see again. He was the type of horse that you’ll never see again.
I wish I would’ve taken him back to the end of the grandstand and walked him in front of all the people to get a good look at him. But then, I don’t know if it would’ve been the right thing to do either, making him do more than he had already done.
But what’s so amazing is when I pulled him up, he wasn’t breathing too hard. And when I took my saddle off of him, he wasn’t even wet. He didn’t even break a sweat after what he had just did. It was just amazing to see him stop the clocks – pulling up, he broke the track record for a mile and five-eighths.
All the people were waiting to have their tickets signed. I signed at least one that was about $200, and I signed a few that were $100. I’d hate to think how many I signed. If my cousin from Ottawa hadn’t pulled me out of there, I would have been signing tickets all night.
… and after the Triple Crown?
Secretariat really matured when I was getting him ready for the Man o’War There was a big difference in him. I couldn’t imagine what kind of horse he would have been as a four- or five-year-old. There’s no telling.
Ron Turcotte was speaking to the NYRA media team (Ryan Martin) and in an NTRA teleconference
• Visit the NTRA website and the Belmont Stakes website
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Not just an iconic racehorse: Secretariat’s impact on the Triple Crown as a sire
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