He was basically a machine made of muscle and heart. Honestly, if you watch the grainy footage from June 9, 1973, it doesn't even look like a horse race. It looks like a glitch in reality. By the time Secretariat hit the top of the stretch at Belmont Park, he wasn't racing the other four horses anymore. He was racing history. And he was winning.
Most people know the broad strokes. Big Red. The Triple Crown. The 31-length victory. But when you really dig into the Secretariat Belmont Stakes 1973 performance, the numbers start to feel fake. They aren't. They’re just that impossible. This wasn't just a win; it was a demolition of what experts thought a Thoroughbred could physically achieve.
The air that day in Elmont, New York, was electric. You had a crowd of nearly 70,000 people screaming their lungs out, most of them holding win tickets they had no intention of cashing. They wanted a souvenir. They wanted to say they were there when the 25-year Triple Crown drought finally snapped.
The Matchup Everyone Got Wrong
Going into the gate, the narrative was all about the rivalry with Sham. People forget that Sham was a monster of a horse. In almost any other year, Sham would have been a legend. He had finished second in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, pushing Secretariat to world-record times in both.
The logic among some bettors was that Secretariat might finally tire. The Belmont is "The Test of the Champion" for a reason—it's a grueling 1.5 miles. That’s a distance modern American horses almost never run.
But Secretariat’s trainer, Lucien Laurin, and his jockey, Ron Turcotte, knew something the public didn't. The horse was actually getting stronger. While most horses lose weight and get "tucked up" during the grueling five-week Triple Crown grind, Secretariat was eating everything in sight and looking more robust by the day.
Moving Like a Tremendous Machine
The race started out fast. Too fast.
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Usually, in a mile-and-a-half race, jockeys try to save something for the end. Not this time. Secretariat and Sham went at it from the jump. They dropped the opening quarter-mile in 23 3/5 seconds. Then a half-mile in 46 1/5. For a long-distance race, that is suicidal.
Turcotte later said he didn't even have to urge the horse. He just let him go. Around the backstretch, the unthinkable happened. Instead of slowing down, Secretariat accelerated.
"He was moving like a tremendous machine!"
That’s the famous line from track announcer Chic Anderson. It wasn't hyperbole. If you look at the fractions, Secretariat ran each quarter-mile faster than the one before it for much of the race. He was opening up a gap that shouldn't have been possible. Five lengths. Ten lengths. Twenty.
Sham, poor Sham, finally broke. He had tried to stay with a god, and he paid for it, eventually fading to last. But Secretariat? He just kept widening the margin.
The Physics of the 31-Length Lead
Let’s talk about the final time: 2:24 flat.
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To put that in perspective, no other horse has ever broken 2:26 in the Belmont Stakes since. It’s a record that has stood for over half a century. In a sport where records are usually broken by fractions of a second, Secretariat took a sledgehammer to the history books.
He didn't just win by 31 lengths; he ran the fastest 1.5 miles on dirt in history.
Why was he so fast? After he died in 1989, a necropsy performed by Dr. Thomas Swerczek revealed a biological secret. Secretariat’s heart weighed about 22 pounds. A normal horse heart is about 8 or 9 pounds. It wasn't a deformity; it was a perfectly formed, massive engine. This allowed him to process oxygen at a rate that prevented the typical lactic acid buildup that slows horses down.
He literally had a bigger engine than everyone else.
Why the Secretariat Belmont Stakes 1973 Win Still Matters Today
Some people argue that modern training and breeding should have produced a horse that could challenge 2:24. It hasn't happened. We see Greatness often—horses like American Pharoah or Flightline—but Secretariat remains the gold standard.
There's a specific kind of nuance to the 1973 Triple Crown. It happened right as the United States was reeling from the Watergate scandal and the tail end of the Vietnam War. The country was exhausted. Then came this massive, chestnut stallion who seemed to represent everything powerful and pure.
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He didn't care about politics. He just wanted to run.
Even today, researchers look at the Secretariat Belmont Stakes 1973 footage to study equine biomechanics. His stride length was measured at roughly 25 feet. Most elite horses hit about 20 or 21. When you combine a 25-foot stride with a 22-pound heart, you get a performance that borders on the supernatural.
Common Misconceptions About the Race
- "The competition was weak." Absolutely false. As mentioned, Sham was one of the fastest three-year-olds of the century. Secretariat just broke his spirit.
- "Turcotte was whipping him." If you watch the replay closely, Turcotte never once used the whip in the stretch. He was actually sitting still, almost in awe of what was happening underneath him.
- "It was a fast track." While the track was "fast" in racing terms (meaning dry), it wasn't artificially sped up. Secretariat's time was purely a result of his own output.
How to Appreciate the Legacy Today
If you really want to understand the scale of what happened, you have to go to Belmont Park (currently undergoing a massive renovation) and stand at the rail. Look down that long, daunting homestretch. Then imagine a horse coming down that lane with no one else even in the frame of the TV camera.
It’s the only time in sports history where the camera had to zoom out just to find the second-place finisher.
For those looking to dive deeper into the history of the Secretariat Belmont Stakes 1973, the best path is to look at the raw data. Study the fractional times. Compare them to the winners of the last ten years. You'll quickly see that we aren't just talking about a great horse—we're talking about a biological outlier that may never be seen again.
Actionable Steps for Racing Fans
- Analyze the Fractions: Go to the official Secretariat archives and look at his quarter-mile splits for the Belmont. Notice how he actually picked up speed in the second half of the race, a feat that defies traditional Thoroughbred stamina profiles.
- Watch the "Pan" View: Don't just watch the broadcast version. Find the wide-angle "pan" footage of the 1973 Belmont. It shows the true physical distance between Secretariat and the rest of the field, which is often lost in tight camera shots.
- Visit the National Museum of Racing: Located in Saratoga Springs, the museum holds the primary artifacts from the 1973 season. Seeing the size of his shoes and his Triple Crown trophy provides a tangible sense of the "Big Red" aura.
- Study the "Large Heart" Gene: Research the "X-Factor" theory in Thoroughbred breeding. While controversial to some, the genetic legacy of Secretariat’s dam, Somethingroyal, is a fascinating rabbit hole into how his 22-pound heart came to be.
The 1973 Belmont wasn't just a race. It was a moment where physics and spirit aligned to show us the absolute limit of what a living creature can do. It remains the most perfect two minutes and twenty-four seconds in the history of sport.