SECRETARIAT
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES ?
12:10 a.m. March 30, 1970. When Secretariat came into the world, the world welcomed him with freezing cold, gusting winds and fog. He took his first breath in the little foaling shed, 17A at the Meadow, a sprawling 2,600-acre farm. Within twenty minutes, the leggy and wobbly foal was up on his feet. In forty-five minutes, he was sucking greedily.
The Meadow was a classy horse farm. Its owner was a man named Christopher Chenery, and he had bought the land in 1936, though many in the horse business had advised him not to. Some said the pastures were too poor, the land was too wet, and it would never do for what he had in mind-a farm to raise the finest Thoroughbreds. Chenery was drawn to the land because his ancestors had owned it before the American Civil War, back in the 1860s. He must have felt a longing to get it back, to restore it to the family.
Christopher Chenery had money (for he was clever in business), he had a degree in engineering (which helped as he drew up complex plans to drain the farm's many swamps), and, most of all, he had a love of horses.
He played polo and he rode every day. He loved the smell and look and grace of horses, especially Thoroughbred horses. The Meadow was his dream, and he lived it every day.
By the time Secretariat was born, Christopher Chenery was eighty-three years old and very frail. For years, the Meadow's horses had done well at the racetrack, but the luck had turned. A horseman must have luck. You can quickly lose your shirt by owning horses. There is even a phrase to describe it: horse poor.
Veterinarian bills must be paid, and blacksmith bills. Medicines and grain and stall bedding must be bought. Fancy tractors are needed to groom the training track, big harvesters to gather the hay, and trucks to haul both horses and hay. Ropes and halters, saddles and bridles constantly wear out and need replacing. Such a huge farm required a staff of trainers and grooms, exercise riders and labourers. And though the sums of money from winnings at the track and the sale of horses seemed great, they could not keep up with the Meadow's ever-rising expenses.
Christopher Chenery's two daughters and son debated what to do. Should they sell the farm? Perhaps use the money from the sale to invest in the stock market? Finally, the youngest daughter, Penny, stepped forward and volunteered to try filling her father's shoes. She was a rider, she had studied business at school, and she had her degree. But would that be enough to pull the Meadow out of its tailspin? Her learning curve as the new farm manager would be steep.
"We'll need a miracle," one longtime worker at the farm said. On the night that Secretariat was born, that same worker called Penny Chenery on the telephone. "Your miracle, he told her, "has arrived."
Lawrence Scanlan
