Vintage Chicago Tribune: 50th anniversary of Secretariat’s ‘runaway’ race at Arlington Park in 1973
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The nation’s most decorated and exciting athlete arrived in Chicago 50 years ago this month.
He wasn’t, however, a baseball, basketball or football player. He was a horse — 16 hands-1 1/2 inches tall and weighing more than 1,550 pounds.
Nicknamed “Big Red” for the color of his hair, Secretariat became the first thoroughbred in 25 years — and ninth in American history — to claim the Triple Crown when he won the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes in a record time of 2:24 and by an unprecedented 31 lengths. That record still stands. Some have called it the best performance ever in horse racing. (Secretariat also finished with record times at the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 1973.)
The three-year-old’s dominance was unexpected considering his ownership was determined after his March 30, 1970, birth by a coin toss that both parties reportedly wanted to lose. When the cost of upkeep on Meadow Stables — his Virginia home — became too great, his owner Penny Chenery (then Penny Tweedy) sold stud shares in the horse totaling $6 million.
Secretariat’s trip to Chicago was seen as bold and potentially disastrous, but Chenery considered it a victory lap not just for the horse — but for anyone in the Midwest who had become its admirer and a supporter of the sport.
“I received a lot of criticism for bringing him to Chicago. People said he might be hurt. They asked, ‘Why do it? What more can he prove?’ I don’t feel that way,” she told the Tribune. “So far we must have sent out 1,000 free pictures of Secretariat. We get requests from kids who are crazy about horses and think this horse is beautiful. We get letters from widows and from old race trackers. I think that every kid who gets a picture now may come to the track when she’s 16. At this stage we get some 200 letters a day. Now Secretariat’s secretary has a secretary.”
Spoiler alert: Secretariat’s performance at Arlington Park was more than prizewinning — it was peerless.
“Maybe someday — when war is passe and peace on earth a fact of life — Chicago will see another Secretariat,” Tribune reporter Neil Milbert wrote about the race. “Until then, on those harsh winter nights when the wind howls in off Lake Michigan ... we will tell our sons and daughters and our grandsons and granddaughters about a race horse named Secretariat.”
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— Kori Rumore, visual reporter
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June 19, 1973: ‘Secretariat will be here rain, snow, sleet, or what have you’
Just three weeks after winning the Triple Crown, Secretariat was confirmed to race in the $125,000 Arlington Invitational. Read more here.
June 29, 1973: Fans watch Big Red’s arrival
Some wondered how he would get off the Overseas National Airways jet, which landed at O’Hare International Airport after a bumpy flight from Newark. (Ironically, fans didn’t get to see watch the horse depart Chicago due to a called-in bomb threat.)
Secretariat “paused, blinked twice at the cameras and meekly walked down and into the van, a groom guiding him by the tail,” the Tribune reported. Read more here.
June 29, 1973: ‘You bet we’ll try for the American record!’
Following Secretariat’s first practice run on Arlington’s track, trainer Lucien Laurin tells reporters the plan is to not only win the race — but to make history.
“He didn’t come here to gallop around the racetrack,” Laurin said. “He came here to run.” Read more here.
June 30, 1973: He came, he saw, he conquered
Secretariat didn’t break the American or track record for the 1 1-8-mile race. “Nonetheless, in 1 minute, 47 seconds the resplendent chestnut, bearing three white stockings and a star on his forehead, made believers of 41,223 men, women and children,” Tribune reporter Neil Milbert wrote.
The way he won? Effortlessly — and by nine lengths. Read more here.
Oct. 4, 1989: A life beyond expectations
The 19-year-old stallion had been stricken Sept. 4, 1989 with laminitis, an inflammation of the structure inside the hoof. At first, the condition seemed to be responding to treatment. When it quickly took a turn for the worse, he was put to sleep at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky. Read more here.
Story from May 2, 1993: Even in death, Secretariat remains larger than life
Bill Nack, who chronicled Secretariat, developed a love of horses while growing up in Skokie
Michael Phillips: No surprises in by-the-numbers “Secretariat”
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