A Memory and A Writing Lesson

A massive, magnificent red thoroughbred won the Triple Crown in 1973, setting records in all three races that still stand today.

After Secretariat won both The Kentucky Derby and then The Preakness (both times with Sham, the horse that had beaten him in a tune-up race, finishing second), it seemed the entire country tuned in to watch The Belmont Stakes.

That included me, unaware I was about to witness the most spectacular performance I would ever see on television—including the miraculous U.S. Olympic hockey victory over the Soviets seven years later.

Even the memory of that race brings tears.

Sham was the only one in the rest of the five-horse field expected to challenge Secretariat’s bid for the first Triple Crown in 25 years. The two alternated for the lead all the way to the backstretch, when Secretariat appeared to grow impatient with the game.

Big Red (as he was affectionately known) began to pull away. Sham was spent and faded as Secretariat thundered around the far turn, impossibly accelerating during the final third of the longest of the Crown races (one and a half miles).

As he lengthened his lead, I leaned forward on the couch, rocking in rhythm to the dance of jockey Ron Turcotte and horse. Soon I found myself standing, eyes wide, mouth agape as Secretariat emerged alone around the last turn, continuing to lengthen the distance between him and the other four horses.

Horse races are often won by a nose, clear, easy victories by a horse length or two. As Secretariat chewed up the ground at a rate of 150 strides a minute (25 feet long each), his 22-pound heart pumping 75 gallons of blood per minute, he reached nearly 40 miles an hour.

CBS commentator Chic Anderson exulted, “Secretariat is widening now! He is moving like a tremendous machine!”

Big Red flew to twelve lengths ahead, now 15, now 18, now 24!

I stood riveted and, yes, weeping, as he continued to fly, now 28 lengths, and finally 31 lengths ahead of Twice A Prince. Sham, his great rival, finished last, 45 lengths off the pace.

Twenty-one Major Leaguers have pitched perfect games since 1900.

Three pitchers have struck out 20 hitters in a game, one twice.

Fourteen batters have hit four homeruns in a single game.

Wilt Chamberlain once scored 100 points in a basketball game.

Jamaican Usain Bolt ran a 100-meter dash in 9.58 seconds, making the other runners appear to be jogging.

But nothing I’ve ever seen compares to watching Secretariat blow away the competition by 31 lengths.

Writing Lesson From a Craftsman

For years I quoted one of my all-time favorite writers, William Nack, former horseracing writer for Sports Illustrated. (The movie, Secretariat, was based on his 1975 book Secretariat: The Making of a Champion.)

Here’s just a taste from one of his SI columns. Note how he deftly uses the lingo of the horseracing milieu in his evocative narrative:

Oh, I knew all the stories, knew them well, had crushed and rolled them in my hand until their quaint musk lay in the saddle of my palm. Knew them as I knew the stories of my children. Knew them as I knew the stories of my own life. Told them at dinner parties. Swapped them with horseplayers as if they were trading cards. Argued over them with old men and blind fools who had seen the show but missed the message. Dreamed them and turned them over like pillows in my rubbery sleep. Woke up with them, brushed my aging teeth with them. Grinned at them in the mirror.

Horses have a way of getting inside of you, and so it was that Secretariat became like a fifth child in our house, the older boy who was off at school and never around, but who was as loved and true a part of our family as Muffin, our shaggy epileptic dog.

Shortly before film editor Roger Ebert’s death in 2013, he was kind enough to connect me with Mr. Nack (they had met at the University of Illinois in the 1960s), and I was privileged to be able to write and tell him how much I admired his work.

How can you use the terminology of the field about which you’re writing to enhance your narrative? Tell me below.

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