GRAND FALLS, New Brunswick — Start spreading the news. After a 37-year drought, horse racing finally has a Triple Crown winner after American Pharoah sped to victory in the 147th Belmont Stakes Saturday evening in New York.
American Pharoah with jockey Victor Espinoza did not have a great start out of the gate, but soon recovered to take the lead and never gave it up for the remainder of the 1½-mile race, holding off Frosted down the stretch for the win.
While the Belmont captivated the racing world, one man in particular was glued to his television Saturday night.
In what is still regarded as one of the greatest finishes in horse racing history, Ron Turcotte and Secretariat galloped to a 31-length win at the 1973 Belmont Stakes, securing a coveted Triple Crown title.
On Saturday, the 73-year-old retired jockey watched this year’s Belmont Stakes from his home in Grand Falls, New Brunswick, as Espinoza and American Pharoah — the 3-year-old with the misspelled name — rode to the first Triple Crown win in 37 years.
“I could not see a horse there to beat him,” Turcotte said minutes after Saturday’s race. “He ran a big race, a beautiful race. That horse ran fast.”
American Pharoah completed the course in 2:26.65.
“He had enough to finish the race when [Frosted] came up,” Turcotte said. “I love it. Racing needed this. It’s beautiful.”
The Vegas betting lines had American Pharoah as the odds on favorite to win at 5 to 7.
To win the Triple Crown, a horse must place first at the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes.
Turcotte did it on Secretariat in 1973, after smashing the Churchill Downs track record with a time of 1 minute, 59 seconds over the 1-mile race and becoming the first Kentucky Derby finisher to run the race in under two minutes.
Since then, only two other horses have gone on to Triple Crown status: Seattle Slew in 1977 and Affirmed in 1978.
Turcotte believed this could be American Pharoah’s year.
“I would not call him a great horse, now,” Turcotte said Saturday morning from his home just over the border from the St. John Valley. “But he is the best of this crop. He is a very good horse.”
It was raining Saturday morning at Belmont Parks, New York, which Turcotte said could have given the horse an advantage.
“Some horses can handle the mud and some can’t,” he said. “We know [American Pharoah] can because he ran twice in muddy conditions, and he really ran the whole time.”
The trick, Turcotte said, was for jockey Victor Espinoza to get the stallion to relax out of the gate.
“American Pharoah is a very good athlete and is very maneuverable,” Turcotte said. “It seems like he can do whatever he wants.”
But the weather did not cooperate for American Pharoah, with the rain ending and the sandy track drying up by early evening.
“But if it does dry up, that will be a different race,” Turcotte said earlier in the day. “I know he has a lot of speed and probably has enough speed to go all the way.”
Turns out, Turcotte was right. Then again, Turcotte knows fast horses.
In 1972, he rode Riva Ridge to wins at the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes and is the only jockey to win five of six consecutive Triple Crown races.
From 1972 to 1973 he was North America’s leading stakes-winning jockey and, with his historic ride on Secretariat, became the first jockey to win back-to-back Kentucky Derbys since 1902.
“Secretariat was such a great horse, just a pleasure to ride,” Turcotte said. “He never fought you.”
Turcotte began riding Secretariat just after the horse came off the farm — sort of like when a Major League Baseball player comes up from the minors.
“You could just talk to him and get him to relax,” he said. “It’s all how you maneuver your reins on the horse; you teach them that when they are young, and they will respond when you move your hands with the reins.”
He said “missteps and errors” in the years since Affirmed took the Triple Crown have prevented other riders and horses from doing the same.
“A misstep here or a jockey misjudging the pace and stuff like that have prevented it from happening,” Turcotte said. “And some horses just should not run.”
Turcotte said he would let Secretariat choose a pace, then, when he wanted to speed things up, he would pick up the reins a bit, he said.
“In 1973 I just let [Secretariat] go into the lead,” he said. “He was breathing good, and he just took over the [Belmont Stakes] and controlled it.”
They ran that race in 2:24, after posting a 1:53 finish at the Preakness Stakes.
“I’d talk to him all along as we galloped,” he said. “I’d tell him, ‘Easy, boy’ and ‘Nice boy’ — really just anything.”
A horse like Secretariat comes along once in a lifetime, if you are lucky, Turcotte said.
“He was a generous horse, a kind horse. There was not a mean hair on him,” Turcotte said. “For a stallion, he’s a one in a thousand of thousands of horses.”
Turcotte last rode in 1978 at Belmont Park when a fall from his horse, Flag of Leyte Gulf, left him a paraplegic. Since then, he has become an advocate and fundraiser for the disabled and related programs.
With 3,032 career wins and more than $28.6 million in purse earnings, Turcotte has been inducted into the National Museum Of Racing Hall of Fame, the New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame, the Canadian Hall of Fame and next week will be inducted into the Canadian Maritime Hall of Fame. In July, a bronze memorial of the jockey and Secretariat will be unveiled in Grand Falls.
Turcotte said Saturday that injuries he suffered in a single-vehicle accident in March prevented him from traveling to New York this year.
“I’d definitely be out there, otherwise,” he said.
Turcotte’s car hit a patch of ice and rolled several times on the Trans Canadian Highway on March 9, and he broke both legs, he said.
“I’m healing OK,” he said. “Both legs are still in casts, and that’s why I’m not out there.”
Not there physically, but he was certainly there in spirit.
“When my doctor was putting my casts on, he asked what color I wanted,” Turcotte said. “I told him it really did not matter, and he decided to make one cast blue and the other white.”
Forty-two years ago, on a horse running all alone out front, Turcotte clinched the Triple Crown in his trademark blue-and-white silks.
“That horse — Secretariat,” he said. “Once in a lifetime there is a horse like that.”
