Twenty years ago today....
...the greatest racehorse the world has ever seen was put down due to laminitis.
Secretariat: March 30, 1970 - October 4, 1989
RIP, Red.
I still get chills and am moved to tears whenever I see the film of his Belmont win. I would have loved to have seen him race at age 4, and older, but financial considerations related to his late owner's estate settlement forced his retirement.
His genes live on, though, in the progeny of three of the most influential sires in the TB world today: Storm Cat (pensioned), A.P.Indy, and Gone West (recently euthanized), all out of Secretariat mares. He never really duplicated himself in a son, though Risen Star won the Preakness and Belmont, and if he hadn't had such a rotten trip in the race, might have beaten Winning Colors in the Kentucky Derby (he showed). And the great Lady's Secret was the best of his racing daughters (though she never reproduced herself when she was bred, despite being bred to prominent stallions like Seattle Slew, Alydar, and Mr. Prospector. I always wondered what she would have produced if she'd been bred to Stage Door Johnny, this doubling up on the Princequillo in her pedigree, or to Sir Ivor, thus doubling up on Secretariat's dam Somethingroyal, or even to an *Herbager-line stallion like Big Spruce, *Grey Dawn II, or Bounding Basque).
Secretariat: March 30, 1970 - October 4, 1989
RIP, Red.
I still get chills and am moved to tears whenever I see the film of his Belmont win. I would have loved to have seen him race at age 4, and older, but financial considerations related to his late owner's estate settlement forced his retirement.
His genes live on, though, in the progeny of three of the most influential sires in the TB world today: Storm Cat (pensioned), A.P.Indy, and Gone West (recently euthanized), all out of Secretariat mares. He never really duplicated himself in a son, though Risen Star won the Preakness and Belmont, and if he hadn't had such a rotten trip in the race, might have beaten Winning Colors in the Kentucky Derby (he showed). And the great Lady's Secret was the best of his racing daughters (though she never reproduced herself when she was bred, despite being bred to prominent stallions like Seattle Slew, Alydar, and Mr. Prospector. I always wondered what she would have produced if she'd been bred to Stage Door Johnny, this doubling up on the Princequillo in her pedigree, or to Sir Ivor, thus doubling up on Secretariat's dam Somethingroyal, or even to an *Herbager-line stallion like Big Spruce, *Grey Dawn II, or Bounding Basque).