Triumph to tragedy: Canada's Turcotte family rose from deep poverty to the peak of horse racing

The Turcottes The remarkable story of a horse racing dynasty

by Curtis Stock

The Turcottes lived such unlikely lives, it's a wonder there haven't been more books written about them.

The high point of Turcotte family history is a record that still stands – Ron Turcotte rode Secretariat to the fastest Triple Crown ever known. This spring marks the 50h anniversary of those glorious races, and author Curtis Stock, himself a celebrated track writer, is out to tell the story in full for the first time.

Mum, Dad, and 14 kids, the Turcottes are an impoverished lumberjacking family in Drummond, N.B. The boys work in the forest, some skidding logs with teams of horses; others riding rafts of the timber itself, downriver to mill.

It is extremely dangerous work, and when the oldest son, Camille, decides to seek a better living in Ontario, five more Turcotte brothers eventually follow suit.

Ron and Reggie Turcotte arrive in Toronto in 1960, nearly penniless. They get hired to pick worms for angling shops. Three measly bucks for a backbreaking harvest of nightcrawlers. Try as they might, no other jobs come their way. Defeated by the big city, the teenagers resolve to hitchhike back home. That very day, their rooming house landlord calls Ron in to watch the Kentucky Derby on TV.

As Ron stands there, dazzled by the grainy black and white spectacle, the landlord looks at his physically small tenant – as though for the first time – and tells Ron that he should become a jockey. Ron has not heard the term before, but he takes his even smaller brother Reggie to the new Woodbine track the next morning. The pair of them, with their compact frames and size 4 ½ feet, stumble into entry level work in EP Taylor's barn. The Turcotte dynasty of