Secretariat: The Making Of A Champion by William Nack
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Book Reviews of Secretariat: The Making Of A Champion
Book Review: Secretariat the Overrated
Summary: 2 Stars
A major, and I mean MAJOR, problem with this book is that there is NO INDEX! Who ever heard of a non-fiction book like this without an index? If you want to find anything, it's impossible. And the chapter heads aren't any help either.
Nack includes a lot of material that I was not interested in. When I bought and read this book, I thought Secretariat was the be-all and end-all of horseracing, and I didn't care to learn all about his background and all about every person who had ever come in contact with him.
There are very few photos, at least in my paperback edition, and these are in black and white, denying me a view of Secretariat's beautiful chestnut coat.
Secretariat, when he was three, had 12 starts, but won only 9, came in second twice, and third, once. He lost 3 races--STAKES races, to average horses. Not exactly a great record. Lots of horses have had better sophomore years. Once he was overtaken in the stretch by another horse, and another time he couldn't catch the leader in the stretch. He was known to run poorly on off=tracks. He was fortunate that all of the Triple Crown races were run on fast tracks. If one had been sloppy--who knows?
Secretariat's immortality is based on three things:
1) His incredible Belmont, a fantastic feat that no one can take away from him. However, his only real competition, Sham, dropped out early, so he was in essence simply running against the clock.
2) The fact that he was the first horse in 25 years to win the Triple Crown. He broke the jinx that had prevented several excellent horses before him from turning horseracing's hat trick.
3) He was a gorgeous-looking horse. How important that is in the TV age! If you watch TV, how often do you see ugly or plain people?
Citation, the previous winner of the Triple Crown in 1948, had 20 starts, with 19 wins and one second (in a stakes TRIAL, with a new rider, Eddie Arcaro, who took full blame for the loss). In the Derby, on a muddy track, he ran down Coaltown, one of the 100 best horses of the century, to win by 3. In the Preakness, again on a muddy track, he won by 5. In the Belmont, on a fast track, he was in first place wire to wire, winning easily by 8 lengths. Then, he won the Sysonby Mile against the best older sprinters in the land. THREE DAYS LATER, he raced in the Jockey Club Gold Cup when it was two miles, beat the best stayers in the country, including Phalanx, the 1947 Belmont winner, by 7 lengths. Then, 2 weeks later, he ran in the 1-5/8 mile Empire City cup in Yonkers and won again, beating older horses. He finished his year by winning two races in California!
Secretariat never did anything in his career to even come close to what Citation did. Yet people deify Secretariat and totally ignore Citation. I hope to rectify this soon by honoring Citation with his own website. Look for it!