The Life & Times of Secretariat, an American Racing Legend Review

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(More customer reviews)I had bought the original videotape of ESPN's "Life and Times of Secretariat," and the original videotape of "Big Red's Last Race," about the 1973 Canadian International. It is nice to have both documentaries on the same disc.
But best of all, ALL of Secretariat's twenty-one starts are included on the disc. Almost all of them are shown in their entirety (only the very early races aren't totally complete). I am assuming all of the footage from these races came from owner Penny Chenery's private collection.
It was great to watch Big Red's races from his two-year-old season in 1972. I had never seen any of those races before. From the time Red won the Hopeful, turf writers from all over the country were hailing him as the second coming of Man O'War. He of course didn't disappoint. His five losses were interesting to see, and in the cases of the 1973 Whitney and Woodward, see again. It was clear he never should have lost a race.
I was extremely impressed with his first race on grass, the 1973 Man O'War. Jockey Ron Turcotte claimed Secretariat was better on the grass than he was on the dirt, and he had mentioned the horse seemed almost deer-like when he ran on the grass. In this race, Secretariat went up against the top grass horse in the United States, Tentam. Tentam did his best to try and catch Secretariat, who was on the lead most of the way in the race, but he couldn't do it.
Secretariat's best performance was arguably the inaugural Marlboro Invitational. In that race, initially intended as a match race between he and stablemate Riva Ridge, there were ultimately FIVE champions in that race, including Secretariat, Riva Ridge, Kennedy Road, Key to the Mint, and Cougar II. No single race since has had that many champions. Secretariat caught Riva Ridge at the top of the stretch and coasted home in world-record time, a record which stood for many years.
The DVD is expensive, but to see all of those races again it was worth the money.

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