Secretariat
Wise Dan in Rarified Company after Second Horse of the Year Title
Not since 1971—the introduction of the modern system of Eclipse Award voting—has a horse won three categories of awards—Horse of the Year, Older Male, and Male Turf Horse—two years in a row. Wise Dan did so by winning six of his seven starts on turf, carrying high weight in five races, and winning four Grade I races in 2013 at tracks across North America. He had a consistent season and was never scratched. In Horse of the Year voting he polled ten times the number of votes as his closest runner-up, Mucho Macho Man. The year before, after his 2012 season, Wise Dan became the first horse to win all three categories since John Henry in 1981. One of only six horses in modern history that have won consecutive Horse of the Year honors, Wise Dan joins Secretariat, Forego, Affirmed, Cigar, and Curlin in that accomplishment. Now seven years old, the chestnut gelding is by Wiseman’s ferry out of Lisa Danielle by Wolf Power. He was bred at home by owner Morton Fink in Kentucky and is trained by Charlie LoPresti near Lexington. His post-season rest over, Wise Dan is now gearing up for the 2014 season at Keeneland, his home base. Click for more details in Claire Novak’s article in Bloodhorse. Posted February 17, 2014
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Why This Foxhunter Cares About Horseracing
Karen L. Myers photo
Over the past couple of months we have run a few News items about the Triple Crown season, kicked off just last Saturday by the Kentucky Derby. We wrote about Uncle Mo, who many in the Thoroughbred industry hoped would be a legitimate Triple Crown contender and breathe new life into the industry. We wrote about Rosie Napravnik who with nearly one thousand wins to her credit hoped to be the first woman to win the Kentucky Derby. True, this isn’t foxhunting, and the question arises whether or not I should be publishing these stories in Foxhunting Life. Why do I?
My answer is because that’s where our great horses come from. The Thoroughbred is the elite athlete of the equine world, and many of our field hunters are off-the-track Thoroughbreds, Thoroughbred crosses, or have Thoroughbred bloodlines in their foundation stock.
If when you take to the field you care at all about grace, generosity, and/or athleticism, you have to thank those bloodlines and those beautiful dreamers—the breeders, trainers, owners, and jocks—who commit their lives, their fortunes, and all their energies to the mostly unforgiving quest of producing a better racehorse. And except for one happy outcome last Saturday, weren’t the hopes of many of those beautiful dreamers cruelly dashed?
Secretariat
Secretariat
by Raymond Wolfe
Updated Edition
Foreword by Ronald Turcotte
The Derrydale Press
224 pages, color
The toss of a coin determined the ownership of the foal that was to become the greatest racehorse ever bred. By losing the toss, Penny Chenery had to settle for the colt that was foaled the following year. When it finally arrived she named it Secretariat.
Some track pundits laughed when the big, fat colt with the ravenous appetite came to the track in training. He was even-tempered and relaxed but possessed a clownish streak. Trainer Lucien Laurin teamed him up with Gold Bag who "wasn’t much of a hoss" according to the grooms, but Gold Bag still worked faster than Secretariat. Then one early morning the youngster flashed by and trainer Lucien Laurin looked at his stopwatch in disbelief.
