The winner and still champion.


Since we've entered Triple Crown season, I thought I would mention again that Secretariat is the greatest race horse that ever lived.

I found this photo of Secretariat winning the Belmont by 31 lengths on a political blog marking Bush's favorable poll number hitting 31 percent. While I thought it was amusing image, I'm not a big fan of linking the greatest race horse of all time with the worst president of all time.




I posted the video of Secretariat's victory at the Belmont a long time ago, but in the video his nearest competitors are so far behind him that when Secretariat crosses the finish line the other horses are out of the camera frame so the cameraman has to pan back once Secretariat crosses the line to follow them across the line.

Unlike the video, in this still photo you can still see the competition as Secretariat is about to cross the finish line.

Of all the great race horses, Secretariat probably had the most loses, but he also had the most impressive wins, shattering world and track records at the Kentucky Derby (which he still holds 33 years later) and the Belmont, and in the Preakness he ran so fast that the official electronic timer could not keep up with him. After two separate independent professional human track timers and CBS video tracked Secretariat at a faster time than the the Preakness' electronic timer, the official time was changed, and the new official time basically split the difference between the times.

A few years ago, Sports Illustrated celebrated the 25th anniversary of Secretariat's Triple Crown victory by re-running the accounts of his victories in each race. You can check them out here:

The Kentucky Derby

The Preakness

The Belmont

Finally, here's a link to a previous post in which I established that Secretariat was a much faster race horse than Man O' War, the horse that some people mistakenly think was the greatest race horse of all time. The idea that that mule was better than Secretariat still makes me laugh.