Secretariat at 50: America’s equine hero endures in the national lore

E ven in 2023, the name Secretariat is recognizable to millions of Americans otherwise unversed in horse racing. Tributes to the most famous racehorse of the 1970s are everywhere. More than 250 streets in the US are named after Secretariat (more than any human athlete), he was one of ESPN’s top 50 North American athletes of the 20th century, and, somewhat confusingly, he even served as the basis for a character in Netflix’s hit animated sitcom BoJack Horseman.

This weekend’s Kentucky Derby marks the 50th anniversary of Secretariat’s victory at Churchill Downs, which was itself the first step in the horse’s signature achievement – winning the 1973 Triple Crown.

“It’s hard to forget,” Ron Turcotte, the Hall of Fame jockey who rode Secretariat to victory in each of his Triple Crown races, tells the Guardian. “[Secretariat’s] name comes up so often that it don’t seem like it’s been that long … he’s everywhere on YouTube. Whenever I feel like looking at him, I can see him there.”

Secretariat’s greatness is occasionally reduced to mechanical terms, the implication being that his accomplishments were purely a product of his exceptional physical attributes.

It is therefore remarkable that, for the most part, Turcotte speaks of Secretariat’s personality when describing what made him such a great horse. “He was a very intelligent horse,” Turcotte says. “Never seemed to fight the rider – never fought me anyway – and he would relax … You could make as many [tactical] moves as you wanted to in a race.”

Indeed, one of the few times Turcotte mentions Secretariat’s physicality is in reference to the horse’s prodigious appetite. Even then, Turcotte speaks with the gently surprised fondness of a grandparent ribbing a particularly