Top Ten Turf Males Twentieth Century
#2
Secretariat
(1972 - 1973)
After a stellar career on dirt, Secretariat’s final two career races were on turf, the 1973 Man o’ War and the Canadian International Championship. He won both those races in fast times and with authority, which suggests he might have been even better on turf than he was on dirt.
Photo: NYRA
PEDIGREE
Ch C
OWNER
Meadow Stable
TRAINER
Lucien Lauren
BREEDER
Meadow Stud
Some Facts
- Secretariat made only two starts on turf, but they were enough for me to establish him as America’s second-best turf horse of the twentieth century.
- After working Secretariat on turf, jockey Ron Turcotte maintained that he was 10-15 lengths better on grass than on dirt. His time in that five-furlong workout was :56 4/5.
- In Secretariat’s first start on turf, the mile and one-half Man o’ War Stakes on Belmont Park’s Widener Turf Course (outer turf course), his time of 2:24 4/5 broke Drumtop’s track record by three-fifths of a second. Tentam, who finished second in that race five lengths behind Secretariat, had previously set the Saratoga nine-furlong track record on turf in a time of 1:45 2/5.
- During Secretariat’s historic Man o’ War Stakes victory, he passed the mile and one-quarter pole in 2:00 flat, which was three and four-fifths of a second faster than Honey Dear’s track record set in 1962. Honey Dear’s record is still the fastest mile and one-quarter on the Widener Course at the time of this writing (2023) sixty-one years.
- Secretariat’s final career start was on Woodbine’s Marshal Turf Course on October 28, 1973. On a miserable, misty day with a sprinkling of rain, he won the mile and five-eighths Canadian International Stakes in 2:41 4/5, just four-fifths of a second off the track record. He had a twelve-length lead in this race with an eighth of a mile to go. From there, he was eased under the wire to get the victory by six and one-half lengths. It has been agreed by many experts that if Secretariat hadn’t slowed in that final eighth of a mile, he would have easily set a new track record.
- Secretariat’s dramatic final race of his career did much to open up Canadian racing, especially the Canadian International, to the world. In the next decade alone, many European standouts came to Woodbine to contest this race, among them the great mare Dahlia, which won the 1973 Washington D.C. International, the 1974 Man o’ War Stakes, and the Canadian International Championship; Youth, a son of Ack Ack, which won both the Washington D.C. International and Canadian International in 1976; Snow Knight who won the 1974 Epson Derby and the following year both the Man o’ War and the Canadian International; and All Along, which had an incredible fall in 1983 winning the Arc de la Triomphe, Turf Classic, The Canadian Championship (then called the Rothmans), and the Washington D.C. International, making her the second Horse of the Year, along with Secretariat, to win this race.
- In 1973, Secretariat was voted champion male turf horse.
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