July 4, 2024

On July 4, 1972, Mom and I didn’t go to see fireworks.  We went to the racetrack.

We had moved from Denver to Long Island in early 1972.  Everything about New York was new and exotic to me – its racetracks especially so.  Back then, horse racing brought together people from every social stratum, from the Vanderbilts in the Turf Club to the down-on-their-luck gamblers on the Apron.  For an 11-year-old boy from Colorado – who, by virtue of a little cardboard tag clipped to my seersucker lapel, had pretty much the run of the place -- it was an education indeed.  I learned to read the past performances in the Racing Form. I even began to bet – Mom staked me to $10 and placed my wagers at the window – including an exacta that netted me over $100.  Especially after Riva Ridge’s commanding win in the Belmont Stakes, I was starting to think of myself as a junior expert.

 So heading to the Aqueduct on July 4 was not a particularly special event.  We were late leaving the house, as usual, so the racing actually began on the Long Island Expressway.  We got to the track just in time to rush to the saddling paddock to see a new horse named Secretariat, who was to run his first race.  After all of the comments we’d heard about Riva’s homely looks, this horse looked dazzling, even to my untrained eye.

 But he didn’t win.  I thought this odd, because in my limited experience, our horses always won (I hadn’t yet learned to distrust conclusions drawn from small sample sizes). Odder still, neither Mom nor trainer Lucien Laurin, who had joined us at in the box for the race, seemed upset.  In fact, they were visibly excited, commenting on how Secretariat had been badly bumped from both sides out of the gate, and how fast he was running at the end.

 There’s a story that after Secretariat came in fourth on that day, Mr. Laurin kicked a chair, swore in French, and said “he should never have been beaten!”  I didn’t see any of that.  Far from his John Malkovich portrayal, in real life he was a soft-spoken, courtly man whose most colorful expression was “believe you me.”  What I remember him saying on July 4, 1972, was “we’ll see what he does next time.”

 And we did.   

John Tweedy