A New Generation Celebrates Big Red

July 15, 2024

In the years after 1973, long before the internet, fans of Secretariat could only relive his astonishing races by talking about them with relatives and fellow fans.

When YouTube appeared in the early 2000s, they could finally watch his races and feel the goosebumps once again. Showing these grainy videos to kids allowed them to bring his beauty and power to a new generation. But when Disney ‘s Secretariat came out in 2010, a movie that still inspires families all over the country, a vast new audience came to love the big red horse just as much as those who saw him race.

At Secretariat events nationwide, I have talked to young fans, some even dressed in homemade blue and white jockey costumes, who step forward shyly to tell me how much they love Secretariat and to ask me to sign their Breyer horse or their Secretariat plushie or their poster. They tell me they have seen the movie over and over. Their parents nod, confirming this, joyful in a shared passion for this great equine athlete. Many of these kids are riders and proudly tell me about their horses. Secretariat and his story still resonate with fans of all ages. 

Now in Ashland, Virginia, where his magnificent, larger-than-life bronze monument was installed in March 2024, new activities are being created just for kids. At Henry Clay Elementary School, the music teacher, Fred Horn, wrote and put on an endearing musical about Secretariat just for young kids. I joined a small group of volunteers and parents in the gym to watch excited first graders tell the story of Big Red. Kids playing Mom, Ronnie, Lucien, and others courageously shouted their lines into a mike on stage. Other kids joined in singing original songs. The boy playing Secretariat wore a blue and white cape. The lively girl who played Ronnie wore a complete blue and white jockey costume. In just 15 minutes, every kid in the grade had a chance to speak, race, or sing. But the cutest part came at the end when a herd of children gleefully reenacted the Belmont race, galloping on stick horses around a large oval marked on the gym floor. Naturally, the boy playing Secretariat won by a large margin. The audience cheered and clapped. Some even shed a few tears.

This July, the Ashland Museum offered a morning of activities for kids that included watching the races as narrated by me, and a visit to the statue. They measured off Secretariat’s amazing 25 ft. stride and compare their own to his. They also saw the tall wooden marker used at the Meadow to measure how many hands a horse stood. Each kid measured their height in hands. Other activities included snacks, coloring images of Secretariat, and decorating tiny horseshoes to take home.

Another idea is to create a lesson plan based on the mathematics of Secretariat’s story—think furlongs, hands, stride length, seconds, offspring and ages. Or using it to inspire written paragraphs or speeches to the class. His legacy rolls on!