In honor of today’s running of the Kentucky Derby, I found an article on the History.com website detailing the greatest horse in history—Secretariat!
From history.com:
Secretariat was a legendary thoroughbred racehorse whose name reigns supreme in the history of racing. The stallion with a chestnut coat, three white “socks” and cocky demeanor not only became the first horse in 25 years to win the Triple Crown in 1973, he did it in a way that left spectators breathless.
Secretariat’s 1973 performance in the third Triple Crown race at Belmont Stakes, where he bested his closest competitor by a mind-blowing 31 lengths, is widely considered one of the most stunning horse races of all time.
Big Red
Called the “Clark Gable of horses” by Vogue, Secretariat consistently blew away the competition: His times in all three Triple Crown races remain the fastest in history. “Big Red,” as he was known, was a horse that seemed aware of his greatness and reveled in it. Secretariat’s owner, Penny Chenery, told author Lawrence Scanlon that Secretariat, “next to having my children, was the most remarkable event in my life.”
A ‘Strong-Made’ Foal
Secretariat was born to a Virginia stable that had been nearly sold when the owner, Chris Chenery, became ill. Chenery’s daughter Penny, however, resisted her siblings’ urging to sell the financially struggling Meadow Farm and instead took charge and guided it back to profitability. In 1969, Penny Chenery decided to breed the stable’s mare, Somethingroyal, to stud Bold Ruler, and the pair’s second breeding resulted in Secretariat.
Born at 12:10 am, March 30, 1970, the foal who became Secretariat first appeared chunky to stud manager Howard Gentry. As Gentry reported, the young horse was a “Big, strong-made foal with plenty of bone.” When Eddie Sweat, who became Secretariat’s long-time, dedicated groom, first met the horse, he was also reportedly unimpressed.
Sweat told Canadian Horseman in 1973, “I didn’t think much of him when we first got him. I thought he was just a big clown. He was real clumsy and a bit on the wild side, you know. And I remember saying to myself I didn’t think he was going to be an outstanding horse.”
A Rough Start
But by age two, the young Secretariat had found his legs and, under trainer Lucien Laurin, began to show the world what a powerhouse he was. He stood tall at approximately 16.2 hands (66 inches) tall, and weighed 1,175 pounds with a 75-inch girth. At his first race on July 4, 1972, at Aqueduct Racetrack in New York City, Big Red got bumped hard at the start, throwing off his race. He finished fourth, but made an impressive surge in the final stretch moving up from 10th place to fourth. In his second race, 11 days later, Secretariat again poured on the speed during the final stretch and won by six lengths. By his third race on July 31, he was already a crowd favorite and easily won, this time with Ron Turcotte who from then on became Secretariat’s main jockey. By the end of his 1972 season, Big Red had won seven of nine races and was named the Horse of the Year, becoming the second two-year-old to ever capture that honor.
Secretariat at Age Three
The following year, 1973, would prove to be pivotal for both the legacy of Secretariat and Meadow Farm. Penny Chenery’s father, Chris, died in January and Penny was hit with a daunting tax bill. To keep the stable operating, Penny Chenery managed to syndicate Secretariat, selling 32 shares of the horse for a record $6.08 million. In his 1973 debut at Aqueduct Racetrack, Secretariat, who had grown even stronger over the winter, proved he was worth every cent.
He slogged through wet conditions and a packed field to win by four and a half lengths. In his next race at Gotham Stakes, Secretariat again surged ahead of the pack to win.
If Secretariat ever did disappoint, it was in his next race at Wood Memorial Stakes. Before the race, an abscess had been discovered on the top of his mouth, likely caused by a burr in his hay. Groomer, Eddie Sweat, would tell The Thoroughbred Record six years later that the abscess “bothered” the horse “a lot.” Big Red ended up third in that race, a shocking four lengths behind the winner, Angle Light. In the lead-up to the Kentucky Derby, the loss dented the armor of a horse that had once been considered a sure-thing.
Kentucky Derby Victory
Following the Wood Memorial race, Secretariat’s team lanced the abscess and it healed. By race day at the 1973 Kentucky Derby two weeks later, Secretariat was once again ready to dominate—and dominate he did.
Although he broke last out of the gate, Secretariat accelerated his pace at every quarter-mile of the race and finished with a course record that still stands of 1:59 2/5th.
In the decades since, only one other horse, Monarchos, has finished in under 2 minutes at the Derby. Two weeks later at the Preakness, Secretariat again came from behind to win the race. His final time was disputed, due to two separate timings, until a 2012 forensic review revealed it was 1:53 flat, which remains an unbroken course record.
By his Preakness win, Secretariat had become an international media star. Big Red appeared on the covers of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated. In a time when the grim news of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War protests had dominated headlines, word of a stunning horse captivated the public’s attention. Writer George Plimpton described Secretariat as “the only honest thing in the country at the time…Where the public so often looks for the metaphor of simple, uncomplicated excellence, the big red horse has come along and provided it.”
Secretariat Takes the Triple Crown
On June 9, 1973, the final race day of the Triple Crown at Belmont Park, the American public was humming with excitement for the race that could determine the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years. Secretariat, for his part, was ready to deliver.
Unlike in his previous races, this time Secretariat did not start from behind. Instead, he bolted from the gate and secured good placement along the inside lane. His long-time rival, Sham, gave him some competition at the start, but by the half-mile mark, Secretariat pulled away. And he just kept accelerating.
“Down the backstretch, with a half-mile to go, Secretariat was clearly giving me a rocket ride,” Turcotte recalled in 1993. “I never experienced anything like it. Faster, faster, faster. Enemy hoofbeats soon disappeared; too far behind us on the track for me to hear. What a race. What a memory.” By the time Secretariat and Turcotte rounded the final corner they were all alone. The announcer, Chic Anderson, narrated to spectators, “He’s moving like a tre-mend-ous machine…”
Secretariat crushed the competition—first by 10 lengths, then 20, and eventually a gob-stopping 31 lengths—to become horse racing’s first Triple Crown winner since 1948. A famous Sports Illustrated photo shows Turcotte looking back during the final leg of the race to see the long empty stretch that Secretariat had opened between him and his nearest rivals.
Penny Chenery would say about Secretariat in the Belmont race, “Why did he keep on running when he’d passed everybody by almost an eighth of a mile? My gut feeling is that it was his home track and he was ready for that race. I just think he got out there and put away Sham early and just felt ‘Okay, I feel good, I’m just going to show them how I can run.’”
‘Only One Secretariat’
In the decades since Secretariat completed the Triple Crown, his record times remain unsurpassed in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes.
In 1974, Secretariat was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. In 1999, he was the only non-human included among ESPN’s 50 greatest athletes of the century and he became the first thoroughbred to be honored with his own U.S. Postal stamp. Outside the paddock at Belmont Park now stands a statue of Secretariat with both his front feet in the air.
Before the Triple Crown races, Secretariat’s breeding rights had been sold by Chenery for $6 million. Part of the agreement was that the thoroughbred would retire from racing after his third year.
After his Triple Crown victory, and a “Farewell to Secretariat” Day at Aqueduct to a crowd of 32,900, the chestnut horse was flown to Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky. Here, he would sire nearly 600 offspring, including 41 stakes winners. But none of his offspring ever compared to the original. “A lot of misinformed people thought he could reproduce himself,” Claiborne manager John Sosby told People magazine in 1988. “But it just doesn’t work that way. There’s only one Secretariat.”
Secretariat’s Heart
Indeed, when the great horse was put down in October 1989, after being diagnosed with a painful, incurable hoof condition known as laminitis, medical examiners discovered something incredible. Dr. Thomas Swerczek, the veterinarian who performed the necropsy, reported that he found that Secretariat’s heart, weighing between 21 and 22 pounds, was the largest he had ever seen in a horse. “We were all shocked,” Swerczek told Sports Illustrated in 1990. “I’ve seen and done thousands of autopsies on horses, and nothing I’d ever seen compared to it.” The main motor of Secretariat, that “tremendous machine,” was approximately twice the normal size.
SOURCE: HISTORY.COM
Sew Colorful 
I’m not a horse racing fan, but I remember Secretariat. This story brings tears. It proves some greatness cannot be measured.
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Good morning, Katharine! I hope all is well with you. When you’re talking horse racing, that’s my bailiwick, having worked on the NE racetracks and thoroughbred breeding farms. Secretariat was the greatest male of all time. Have you seen the movie? It’s really a good one; same with Seabiscuit. Now that I think about it….altho Seabiscuit didn’t win any Triple Crown races, his was a truly hard luck story, coming back from injuries and abuse. Secretariat had a much easier, privileged life. The greatest female, had she lived, was Ruffian – another great movie. Had she not broken down, she could possibly have won at least one of the Triple Crown races, if not all of them.
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“Public Broadcasting Exec Resists Trump Order To Defund NPR: ‘Wholly Independent of the Federal Government’ — Trump has signed order to terminate federal funding for NPR and PBS over left-wing reporting bias”
Matthew Xiao, May 2, 2025
ENTIRE ARTICLE: “After President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to end federal funding for NPR and PBS, the CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which disburses the funding to those broadcasters, claimed the corporation is exempt from the president’s oversight.
“CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority,” CEO Patricia Harrison said Friday morning in a statement, according to the New York Times. “Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government.”
Harrison did not note that the president picks the nine members of the CPB’s board of directors or that Congress controls federal funding to the corporation.
Trump’s executive order instructs the CPB to cut off all direct federal funding for NPR and PBS to the “maximum extent allowed by law” and “decline to provide future funding.” The order also demands that CPB officials take steps to “minimize or eliminate” any indirect funding to the broadcasters.
NPR and PBS—America’s two biggest public broadcasters—have long faced public scrutiny over left-wing political bias in their coverage, even as the networks have received federal funding for decades. In the 2025 fiscal year alone, NPR and PBS received around $535 million from the federal government.
During a March congressional hearing, NPR CEO Katherine Maher, who has called Trump a “deranged racist sociopath,” acknowledged that the outlet delivered poor coverage of two politically charged stories: the Hunter Biden laptop and the origins of COVID-19. NPR was “mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner,” Maher said at the hearing. She also acknowledged that “the new CIA evidence” about the Wuhan lab leak “is worthy of coverage.”
In response to Trump’s Thursday order, NPR said that eliminating CPB funding “would have a devastating impact on American communities” that rely on public radio for news, emergency alerts, and public safety information, according to the Times.
PBS has also condemned the order. “The President’s blatantly unlawful Executive Order, issued in the middle of the night, threatens our ability to serve the American public with educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years,” PBS CEO Paula Kerger said Friday morning.”
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Hey, Filly! I’m okay, walking, talking, breathing, and driving, but a series of inconveniences has changed my routines.
I remember your long commitment to horses and other animals, and your dedication to exposing truth of all sorts. I’m glad there are people like you and your team to help keep us all grounded.
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Thank you for that. 12 years ago, when I bought this place and retired, I finally had the time to do the necessary research to find out what is really going on behind the scenes and was shocked at my own ignorance. It has since become my mission to inform and educate others, as well as debunking the lies. Ah, yes – disruption to routines – I hate when that happens! Having low-level Aspergers, I need my routines and get all discombobulated when things change. Kind of odd, tho, that I’m pretty good at finding solutions in an emergency. And a master at re-purposing! LOL – I hate to throw things away….one of those “some day I might need it….” BTW, need any boxes??? ROFL
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Thanks, Filly, but I’m now down to the boxes I can fit in my small car. Dealing with parents’ and my own old paperwork, and mailing mementoes to relatives who may care.
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I’m gradually parceling out stuff to family members who might want it – I sent all my horse stuff – plates, figurines & books – to my Sis’s great-granddaughter, who is in love with horses. Since both of my children have died and none of my grands care about any of it…a lot will just go in the trash, including my childhood memorabilia, or to Good Will, unfortunately. But it is what it is! I’ve sent some books to Pat and a couple of other people on the blogs, too.
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A sunny day here in NE, altho a bit nipply at 39, but not windy or raining, thankfully. I got all of my plants potted and out where they belong, as well as 2 solar lanterns on the frame over the garden beds and new solar lights for my gate posts. And my US flag is flying again!
Any time the government gets involved, things go to hell in a hand basket!!! SMH – just let us grow our own, FFS!!!
Just The News: “America is smack dab in the middle of a major drug, business, and legal experiment. Twenty-four states and Washington, DC have now legalized recreational marijuana. Even more states—39 plus DC— allow medical use.
Pot has been legal for recreational use in Oregon longer than most anyplace else. The story of how it has working out about 10 years later is complicated and depends on who’s telling it. Mike Getlin helped start up the Cannabis Industry Alliance of Oregon and now does public relations for Nectar Markets, the largest recreational cannabis dispensary chain in Oregon. Its expert joint rolling team rolls about 5 million “doobies” a year.
“If you had to give the whole effort statewide a grade in terms of success, whatever that means, what would you say it is at this point?” Full Measure asked Getlin.
“I think we get an A for the amount of legal market adoption. The number of Oregonians that choose to get their cannabis products from legal sources is probably the highest in the country,” he said. “We definitely get an A-plus for the best products around. … And I think we get an A for minimizing any public health or safety harms. We probably get about a C-minus for the business climate, um, and the ability of the regulatory infrastructure to modernize and adapt.”
Another downside is the reality of the business climate. Some small business owners lured by the promise of a new “green rush” have found it impossible to make a living at it.
In 2015, Myron Chadowitz started Essential Farms, a small organic marijuana farming operation in rural Veneta, Oregon, two hours south of Portland. He had high hopes – at first. “How many people did you have at your peak?” I asked him. “Twenty-two,” he said. “We were doing a million in sales. We were doing great. You know, were we making money? No but we were seeing there’s an avenue ahead.”
But his dreams of the high life went up in smoke in March of 2023 when Oregon started requiring growers to test pot for a certain type of mold. It put him out of business – before the state decided a few months later that the tests weren’t necessary, after all.
“Law’s gone. But here we are. Laid off everyone,” Chadowitz tells me. “What’s to stop the state or federal [governmenrt from] throwing another regulation out of the blue that we’re gonna have to adapt to that maybe we won’t be able to? And it’s like, ‘Can I do this any longer?’ And as a businessman, I said, ‘I’ll take the loss. I’m, I’m done.’”
I asked Getlin what has been the most challenging part of the legalized pot movement in Oregon.
“Trying to make a profit,” he says. “As someone who’s worked in the trade association world in Oregon for many years, I would say 90-plus percent of my friends’ businesses have failed. I have my farm failed that I originally started, and I was fortunate enough to be able to continue my work in the industry through Nectar and through the trade associations. But the business failure rate and the type of economic damage that it has done to many of my friends and colleagues has been really tough to watch.”
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NF, Do horses like ditch weed? Just a thought. Regulation seems to do more harm than good.
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Horses and cattle do eat it and sometimes get a little woozy but not often – there’s almost no THC in it. Yep, any time the government gets it’s fingers in the pie, things get wonky!
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Wonky? Yep.
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“Many of our allies and friends are celebrating May 8th as Victory Day, but we did more than any other Country, by far, in producing a victorious result on World War II. I am hereby renaming May 8th as Victory Day for World War II and November 11th as Victory Day for World War I. We won both Wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance, but we never celebrate anything — That’s because we don’t have leaders anymore, that know how to do so! We are going to start celebrating our victories again!”
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114435902192931017
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Just The News: “The Army is planning a huge military parade in June to mark its 250th anniversary that could include over 6,600 soldiers, 150 military vehicles and 50 helicopters. The plans were first reported by The Associated Press, which obtained the planning documents dated Tuesday and Wednesday but have not been publicly released.
Army spokesman Col. Dave Butler confirmed to the wire service about the possibility of the parade. The Army has long planned its 250th anniversary festival on the National Mall, but the parade is a new potential element. The anniversary is June 14, which is also President Trump’s birthday and Flag Day.
“We want to make it into an event that the entire nation can celebrate with us,” Butler said. “We want Americans to know their Army and their soldiers. A parade might become part of that, and we think that will be an excellent addition to what we already have planned.”
Another Army spokesman said no final decisions have been made about a parade.
The potential parade plans include soldiers coming in from across the country from at least 11 corps and divisions. The plans include a tank battalion and two companies of tanks, a Stryker battalion with two companies of Stryker vehicles, Paladin artillery vehicles, an infantry battalion with Bradley vehicles, and Howitzers. Seven Army bands and a parachute jump by the Golden Knights are also a possibility. A concert and fireworks are expected to follow the evening parade.
The wire service did not say whether the event is still set to be held in Washington, D.C.”
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NF, We also need to celebrate our ongoing strengths. War drains manpower and woman power, for questionable rewards. America has done a few things right, and we’ve adopted ideas from the past, as well as from other geopolitical entities. Let’s celebrate our abilities to cooperate on multiple fronts.
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“The Mainstream Media vs. the Conservative Spouse”
Washington Free Beacon Editors, May 3, 2025
ENTIRE ARTICLE: “For the mainstream media, questioning the role of women in the workplace is alright as long as they’re c-words—conservatives, that is.
This week’s target is Jennifer Hegseth, wife of Secretary of Defense Pete, whose husband evidently relies on her for professional advice and guidance. According to a Washington Post report published April 30, Jennifer Hegseth “has informed her husband’s staff of media interviews he planned to do, underscoring a belief among some officials that she wields outsize influence over certain Pentagon operations.” The horror!
As the Post writes, such responsibilities typically “fall to dedicated media-engagement professionals employed by the Defense Department, not the secretary’s wife,” who in this case is a former Fox News producer with nearly two decades of television experience.
Hegseth’s devotion to his wife is such that he displays “jumbo photographs of his wife and family in his office” and “has been unequivocal about how important his wife is to him,” and while the Post clarified that it is common “for a defense secretary to display some photos of loved ones,” Hegseth’s collection is “atypical” and “especially striking.” Somebody stop this man.
This sort of coverage is hardly unique. During President Donald Trump’s first term, Politico’s Nahal Toosi produced in-depth reports raising questions about the role of then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s wife, Susan. Why did she accompany him on overseas trips? “Her close involvement in his career has attracted unwelcome scrutiny,” Politico reported. Sure—from Politico.
Then there was Florida’s first lady Casey DeSantis. “Her role in Ron’s political and governing life has no exact limit or shape,” the Post wrote during the 2024 presidential primary campaign. “It is in the air in which he moves.” The governor and his wife were “insulated,” with a “level of distance between Ron and Casey and everyone else.” Weirdos!
What didn’t merit scrutiny from the mainstream press was the role DOCTOR Jill Biden played in the previous administration. First lady runs a cabinet meeting? Nothing to see here. (Now we know that in the Biden White House, her word “carried the most sway.”)
As it turns out, these ace reporters don’t have a great handle on what Americans expect of public figures when it comes to their relationships with their spouses. And conservatives can take comfort in the fact that the media’s endless simping for liberal women from Dr. Jill to Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton—and, in the case of the latter two, their predatory husbands—has been self-defeating.”
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Why was the truck carrying so many dimes? Not like they had silver, because the silver was taken out of dimes in the 1960s or so. US coins have neen downgraded numerous times since the Constittion defined money as “specie”. Even the paper dollar was an aberration, begun ty B. Franklin, a printer, who got his first government contract for printing paper money for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
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They haul them from the manufacturer to the various different treasury departments in the states. My Sis told me she hauled a load of quarters once.
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“A starfish born square due to a birth defect…”
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“Kentucky $167.3 million Powerball jackpot winner arrested days after claiming prize…
Sure he can afford a lawyer, but kicking a deputy in the face will probably land him in jail for a bit. I would not want to be anywhere confined with criminals, with them knowing I had hit a $167.3 million jackpot.”
https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/kentucky-man-arrested-in-florida-days-after-winning-167m-powerball-jackpot/3605610/
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“South Korea’s ‘sea women’ are genetically adapted for their tough trade…
Generations of Haenyeo have dived to harvest food in freezing waters—and their DNA reflects it. Divers and other Jeju natives share gene variants related to cold tolerance and reduced diving blood pressure.”
https://www.popsci.com/science/korea-women-divers-genetics/
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Filly, I am so glad you and your cadre are highlighting diverse cultures of people, plants, and animals. It verifies to me that there is more life out there and in here than our TechnoWizardry can contain.
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Oh, my, yes! Need to get away from the tech now and then. I do it with my gardening, flowers and bird feeders.
Just spent a few hours painting the trellis I got from my Mom (which my now-dead brother had bought for her) in preparation for putting it in the front of my house for the clematis. I had an old ladder out there with my wooden Uncle Sam statue but they are both sadly deteriorated after being out there for over 10 years. I have what is supposed to be a blue Clematis already there (it’s really purple) and will add one red & one white. I have the red one in a pot – I’ve been babying that for 3 years since it was kind of sickly when I got it! The white one I’ll have to transplant.
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“And you wonder why the average home buyers age is now 38? Yup – first-time homebuyers in the U.S. are getting older. The median first-time homebuyer has reached an all-time high age of 38 years old, three years older than in July 2023. And it’s mostly to blame for the fact that idiots like whoever ended up ‘winning’ this price war spent entirely too much money on it, but then again the realtor and the seller are both laughing all the way to the bank.
The three bedroom, one full and one half bathroom home in the suburban town of Glen Ridge, NJ was listed March 15 for $629,000 and closed April 25 for $951,000. That’s 51% or $322,000 more than it’s asking price. That’s just fuckin’ insanity. Seriously. I’d bet the property taxes on that tiny little nothing of a house are in excess of $ 15,000.00 per year.
A million-dollar price tag no longer means lavish and luxurious living. In more than 200 U.S. cities, buyers will find a price tag of $1 million or more on the typical starter home, a new Zillow analysis finds.”
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As a friend says, “The government owns everything.”
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Unfortunately, in one form or another. Thankfully, I don’t have to pay property tax on my house with a Homestead Exemption since I get so little in SS. But it’s more than my Mom gets and is enough for me to live on comfortably.
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Yeah! Another task accomplished! I had ordered new solar lanterns for my fence posts and I just got them installed. One of the posts was rotted enough that it wouldn’t hold a screw so I had to wire that one. But it works! Next task: continue painting my trellis. But I’ve going with the brush for the rest – it would take another 5-6 spray cans to finish it, which is ridiculous, considering that I have a 3/4 full quart of exterior white paint.
Stunningly gorgeous day! Doors are open, sun is shining, only an occasional slight breeze, and temp is up to 75. It couldn’t be more perfect! Hopefully, I’ll see Orioles soon…..
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“In Profile About John Fetterman, New York Times Combines Neurology and Politics — Another coverage innovation!”
Matt Taibbi, May 03, 2025
“The New York Times ran a piece about how Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman could be “backsliding on his recovery from a mental health crisis:”
Per the Times, when Fetterman “seriously considered” voting for Pete Hegseth, it might have been evidence of brain damage, on par with “dangerous driving habits,” also described at length. Man, political analysis is getting weird in this country…
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/us/politics/john-fetterman-mental-health.html
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From “The Spy Who Loved Me”
Bald Eagle vs. Red-tailed Hawk
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Yum!!!
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