Secretariat and YouTube

"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" -Richard III, Shakespeare

I love YouTube, and thanks to that, I get to share something that's very hard to explain in person: Secretariat at Belmont.

For those who don't know, the Belmont Stakes is the last leg of the American Triple Crown of horse racing (the other legs being the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness). Despite being less prestigeous than the Kentucky Derby, it is universally regarded as the hardest of the 3 legs to win, since it's 12 furlongs, as opposed to 10 furlongs for the Kentucky Derby and 9 and one half furlongs for the Preakness (that's 1.5 miles, 1.25 miles, and 1.1875 miles for the rest of us humans).

Winning the Triple Crown is very difficult to do, only 11 horses have ever done so, 8 of them before 1948. By 1973, there was a huge amount of debate between journalists about whether it was still possible for a horse to win the Triple Crown, because not only does it involve the horses running the race of his life 3 times in the span of about a month. And on top of that, since each race gets longer, it becomes progressively more difficult to win. Many many horses have won the first 2 legs of the Triple Crown only to be defeated by the length of the Belmont Stakes.

This is where Secretariat enters. He won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness (his Derby time still stands as record today). So dominant was he that only 4 other horses entered the Belmont Stakes to challenge him. Still, it had been 25 years since a horse won the Triple Crown and by now, the publicity has skyrocketed and people turned out in droves to watch the race, both in person and on TV.

And this is what happened.



Thiry-one and one half lengths. It's hard to fathom just how big of a distance that really is. This performance is, without a doubt, the greatest physical achievement I've ever seen in an competition. It leaves me awe-struck and inspired at the same time. Normally, I really do not follow horse racing in any form, but something like this, somehow, just transcends. How do you compare this with anything else? The only thing that comes close in the athletic arena is Bob Beamon. I've attempted to explain to my friends just how amazing what Secretariat did was, but... nothing seemed to do it justice. So I'm grateful to YouTube for finally giving me a way.

Oh, by the way, the music in the background? From Rudy. One of my favorite soundtracks.