Word: belmont
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...This letter will be postmarked before the running of the Belmont. Secretariat will lose, I am sorry to say, because he has just appeared on the cover of TIME...
Thus, as Trainer Lucien Laurin saddled up Secretariat for last week's 105th running of the Belmont, his nervous statement that the horse was "very good, very quiet, very wonderful" seemed a kind of incantation to ward off the "Belmont jinx." Something worked. Secretariat not only defied history-he rewrote it, in one of the most astonishing triumphs in horse-racing annals...
...Horse Race. Unlike Citation, who won the Belmont in a breeze over a middling field, Secretariat figured to face stiff competition from Sham, the gutsy bay colt who had finished second in the first two legs of the Triple Crown...
...still a two-horse race," said Laurin. "Our horse and Sham." So many horsemen agreed that only three other three-year-olds were entered in the race, making it the smallest Belmont field in 30 years. Johnny Campo, trainer of Twice a Prince, talked bravely of a major upset, making the familiar point that Bold Ruler, Secretariat's sire, was not known for producing horses of lasting stamina...
Campo and the 69,138 fans who packed Belmont Park last week saw Secretariat put that old question to rest once and forever. As expected, Secretariat and Sham staged an early head-to-head duel. Then, with his long, beautifully rhythmic strides, Secretariat began to pull away. First it was by one length, then five, then ten. Coming into the stretch, Jockey Ron Turcotte did not bother to go to the whip as Secretariat poured it on. When he crossed the finish line, he had won by an incredible 31 lengths, the largest winning margin in the history...