A Brief History
On June 9, 1973, Secretariat, often called “Big Red,” won the final round of horse racing’s Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, by an unprecedented and unequaled 31 lengths! In fact, Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont all in record times that still stand 50 years later!
Digging Deeper
Secretariat was a big, strong horse, 16 ¾ hands high and weighing in at 1155 pounds. With a stride of 24 feet 11 inches, he could cover ground at a top speed of 49 miles per hour carrying a jockey, even faster if unburdened. His best time of 2 minutes and 24 seconds for a mile and a half remains the world record for a racehorse.
At the age of 19, Big Red developed a hoof disease and had to be euthanized, ending the life of arguably the greatest racehorse of all time.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Myers, David. History of Horseracing. Sutton Publishing, 2006.
Scanlan, Lawrence. The Horse God Built: The Untold Story of Secretariat, the World’s Greatest Racehorse. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2008.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Jlvsclrk of a statue of Secretariat in the walking ring at Belmont Park, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
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