the others, closing the lane and cutting the lead to three lengths, then two lengths as the wire loomed, then one and a half lengths. Suddenly the hole on the rail closed as Master Achiever came over, and as the wire swept overhead Feliciano had to stand up and take Secretariat back again—“He gave me three runs that day! Three!”—to prevent him from running up Master Achiever’s heels. He closed about eight lengths on the leaders in a powerful run through the stretch, finished fourth, and earned $480, beaten only a length and a quarter by Herbull. As he crossed the finish line, the first thought that came to Paul Feliciano was, “God damn, I’m going to catch hell.”
Up in the press box, trackman Jack Wilson had already seen Secretariat’s run and sat down to write a brief summary of the race for the official chart, which read in part: “Secretariat, impeded after the start, lacked room between horses racing into the turn, ducked to the inside after getting through in the stretch and finished full of run.”
Down in the box seats, Penny Tweedy smiled as the colt raced across the line—she, too, was unaware of the collision—and told Lucien, “That’s pretty good for a first start.”
Lucien jumped from his chair in the box seat, kicked it, and growled, “He should have never been beaten!” His reaction startled Penny. Lucien had told her only that he thought she ought to be there for the colt’s first start—not that the colt was going to win, only that his workouts were impressive and he appeared to be learning fast. Lucien’s reaction made her realize for the first time how much he thought of Secretariat.
Feliciano pulled the colt to a halt at the bend, turned him around, clucked to him, and galloped slowly back to the unsaddling area by the paddock scale, where the jockeys weigh in after a race. As he galloped back, he happened to look over his left shoulder, toward the paddock, and as he pulled up he saw precisely what he expected—Lucien standing in the paddock waiting for him.
Jumping off Secretariat, Feliciano began preparing himself. All he could do, he thought, was tell the truth.
Feliciano weighed in at the scales, and turning around, he handed the saddle and pads to a valet and walked over to Lucien. The trainer waved a finger in Feliciano’s face. “God damn!” he said. “You sure as hell messed that one up.”
What was worse for the young apprentice was that he was scheduled to ride another horse for Lucien in a later race—Sovereign in the seventh. But between races, Lucien and Penny had seen the films, and as Paul came to the paddock for the seventh, Lucien was smiling. Quietly, Lucien apologized for yelling at him, and Feliciano recalled Laurin telling him he hadn’t seen the films then and didn’t realize the battering he’d taken at the start.
Yet, even with that, it surprised Paul when he picked up an overnight list of entries nine days later and glanced at it as he left the jockeys’ room. Under the entries for the fourth race on July 15, a three-quarter-mile sprint for colts and geldings, he read: “Secretariat … Feliciano, P.”
Secretariat walked away from his first race staring, his eyes still wide open to the startling snap of the gate and to the collision—and no doubt to the suddenly quickening beat of his life.
Lucien did not hesitate to fuel his intensity, to keep him on his toes through July. Six days after his first start, Secretariat worked to three-eighths of a mile in 0:353/5 at Belmont Park. Four days later Lucien sent him out to zip three-eighths again, this time breezing in 0:36 on a sloppy track, the day before his second race on July 15.
Jules Schanzer didn’t abandon Secretariat July 15, writing in the Daily Racing Form:
Secretariat turned in a remarkable performance after being badly sloughed at the start of his rough recent preview. The half-brother to Sir Gaylord turned on full steam after settling into his best stride and was devouring ground rapidly through the stretch run. Today’s added distance is a plus factor that can help him leave the maiden ranks.
Nor did the bettors abandon Secretariat at Aqueduct, sending him off as the $1.30-to-$1.00 favorite over Master Achiever.
Paul Feliciano emerged from the tunnel by the jockeys’ room and walked to Lucien in the paddock. They huddled briefly. “Don’t do like you did last time. Just stay out of trouble and let him run. He shouldn’t get beat.”
Lucien then gave Feliciano a leg up on the colt, and to the sound of Sam Koza’s Aida trumpet signaling the field of eleven horses to the post, Feliciano was already thinking about what he would do. He was more nervous than usual that afternoon because he himself believed—as Lucien and thousands of bettors no doubt believed—that he should not have lost his first start, that he should not be beaten this time, and that he was sitting on a horse who needed only room to run. He thought about the opening jump from the gate, hoping the colt would break well and in the clear, not in a tangle of horses again, and he thought he would try to keep him on the outside where he would have room to move.
What made Lucien the angriest, thought Feliciano, was a jockey getting a horse in trouble and getting him beat when he should not have been beaten. That was inexcusable. So he was rehearsing what he would do to keep Secretariat in the clear, free to move when he wanted to. He decided he wouldn’t rush the horse, even if he broke slowly, but rather would let him settle into stride and move out when he put it together.
Into stall 1 moved Fleet ‘n Royal, the colt who had finished third, a nose in front of Secretariat, on July 4. The youngsters loaded each in turn. An assistant starter took ahold of Secretariat’s rein on the left side and led him into Stall 8, to the outside of Jacques Who and to the inside of the post of Bet On It, a gelding with a quick turn of foot. The instant before the red horse stepped into the starting gate, Feliciano pulled a pair of plastic goggles over his eyes. Secretariat gave no signs of nervousness at the post, no feeling that he would bust hell-bent for the turn. Secretariat stood relaxed inside the gate, Feliciano recalled, looking casually ahead.
Starter George Cassidy, standing atop a platform about ten yards in front of the gate, watched for the moment when the heads stopped turning. Then Cassidy pressed the button, the gates popped open, and the eleven liberated horses started bounding forward as one.
Secretariat broke alertly, as he did July 4, his head emerging from the gate with the others in the first jump, but with that first single stride he was already running last, already a half length behind Jacques Who at the break. Ten feet from the gate, with the others barreling for the lead and beginning to string out, he was still nearly trailing the field. This start, among others, would later give rise to the false notion that the battering he took in his first race made him timid in all his starts, made him afraid to leave the slip with his field, causing him to take himself back.
But he didn’t take himself back that afternoon. He was pumping and driving with his front and back legs, trying to move his bulk apace with the field. He was reaching for whatever ground he could grab beneath himself, but he wasn’t getting there as fast as the others.
Up in the box seats, Laurin’s mouth dropped open as the colt fell back to last, astounded that it was all happening a second time.
Feliciano sensed the colt was having no easy time finding his stride, so he sat tight on him as they started to race for the bend, not reaching back and strapping him, not hollering at him. Instead, Feliciano sat pumping with his arms, in rhythm with the stride. Through that first quarter mile, Feliciano wondered whether Secretariat would ever get it together. All he could do for the moment was keep the colt to the outside, clear of traffic, and wait for him to find himself. He began to worry in earnest as the field pounded through the first 220 yards, leaving him with only five furlongs to go and still no running horse beneath him. He was asking Secretariat to run, but without the whip, pumping on him as they raced to the bend.
Bet On It was sprinting toward the half-mile pole a length in front, zipping along at an eleven-second clip through the first eighth, with Master Achiever right behind and Impromptu third. They were rolling as Secretariat finally came alive.
As the field raced down the backside