When he returned stateside six weeks after the Tet Offensive in 1968, he took a job as a cityside scribe for Newsday on Long Island. He ranked as an infantry lieutenant in the U.S. He had grown up as a groom in stables around Chicago, attended his first Kentucky Derby in 1958 and took the reins from future film critic Roger Ebert as the editor of The Daily Illini while an undergraduate at the University of Illinois. William Nack, a raconteur and reciter of poetry from Skokie, Ill., wished to cover the whole horse. So you never know what will happen to a horse.” Eight days after the Belmont, he had a heart attack and died at three years old. “He won the Kentucky Derby, finished seventh in the Preakness, won the Belmont. “Swale over here died at a very young age of three years old,” Rodeo says.

Tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone, certainly not racehorses. Rodeo reminds visitors that death comes to all. Jockey Ron Turcotte carries the torch from a wheelchair since being tossed by a horse and paralyzed from the waist down in 1978. The most recent connection to depart was writer William Nack, the horse’s chief chronicler, who died in April. The groom, Ed Sweat, is deceased, too, having lost his battle to leukemia at 59 in 1998. Lucien Laurin, the trainer, was 88 when he died from complications following hip surgery in 2000. Penny Chenery, his owner, died at 95 last year. Forty-five years after Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, he is unequaled in equine annals, but many who bore witness are now gone. A typical thoroughbred heart is about seven or eight pounds.” When he passed away, they estimated his heart at 21 pounds. “He still holds all three of the Triple Crown records even today.

“To me, this is the greatest racehorse to ever run on a racetrack,” he says. Rodeo orates as he points to Secretariat’s marker. Two Triple Crown winners are interred: Gallant Fox and Secretariat. Swale, Pulpit and Round Table occupy a row of their own. Across the way are Bold Ruler, Court Martial and Double Jay. In one line, there is Reviewer, Buckpasser, Hoist the Flag, Riva Ridge, Nijinsky II and Mr. Pilgrims pay homage inside split-rail fences, and Rodeo performs a roll call of the equine athletes at rest. Buried beneath are the remains of 22 thoroughbreds that once answered a bugler’s call to starting gates. Rodeo, a bearded groom in a camouflage jacket, ambles between two rows of gray headstones in the horse cemetery at Claiborne Farm.

Bill nack secretariat