The 1973 Kentucky Derby

“The Run For The Roses”, America’s most iconic horse race.  On May 5th, 1973 a then record setting crowd 134,476 at Churchill Downs witnessed the first leg of history being made.  Going off as a co 3-2 favorite, Secretariat and jockey Ron Turcotte broke from last pole position and chased down Sham on the stretch beating him by 2 ½ lengths, earning $155,050 for the victory.  Secretariat ran each quarter-mile segment faster than the one before it finishing in 1:59 2/5, a track record that still stands today!

“I was at Secretariat's Derby, in '73 ... That was ... just beauty, you know? He started in last place, which he tended to do. I was covering the second-place horse, which wound up being Sham. It looked like Sham's race going into the last turn, I think. The thing you have to understand is that Sham was fast, a beautiful horse. He would have had the Triple Crown in another year. And it just didn't seem like there could be anything faster than that. Everybody was watching him. It was over, more or less. And all of a sudden there was this, like, just a disruption in the corner of your eye, in your peripheral vision. And then before you could make out what it was, here Secretariat came. And then Secretariat had passed him. No one had ever seen anything run like that—a lot of the old guys said the same thing. It was like he was some other animal out there.”

Sportswriter Mike Sullivan

Memorabilia From This Race