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I am finally doing it! Starting my movie blog with the last movie you think I would review.

For years now, friends, family, nurses, pet sitting customers have all been telling me that I should write a movie blog. Come to find out, due to an unfortunate accident in 2008, I developed a very rare and difficult to treat neurological condition called CRPS or chronic regional pain syndrome. Movies have always been one of my favorite pastimes. I used to go to go to the movies every Tuesday either by myself or with my best friend. But unfortunately, due to my CRPS spreading to my left leg as well following several back surgeries, going to the movie theater became very painful. The loud sound and vibration it caused, made the pain so intense, I was no longer able to do it. So I got myself a FireStick, and set it up so I could watch every movie and series ever made. I started keeping a list because so many of my friends asked me for recommendations of movies to watch. I guess I had pretty good taste in movies, because pretty soon I had a whole group of people from my nurse practitioner that filled my pain pump every month, to a whole bunch of my pet sitting clients, friends and family asking for my growing list. I typically love to watch psychological thrillers and dramatic movies, suspense and horror movies. Rarely I find a comedy movie or series I really enjoy, but I tend to go for the action and suspenseful movies first. That’s why it’s surprising that the first movie I have chosen to review is actually a Disney movie on the complete opposite end of the spectrum called Secretariat.

Secretariat was an American thoroughbred race horse born in 1970 and went on to be the first horse to win the Triple Crown, The Kentucky Derby, The Preakness Stakes, and The Belmont Stakes in 25 years. The movie stars Diane Lane as Penny Chenery-Tweedy as a housewife and mother of four living in Denver, Colorado in the early 70s. She was brought up on a horse breeding farm in Virginia called The Meadow by her parents Christopher and Helen Chenery and had one sibling named Hollis. After going to college she had given up her career to raise her family, her husband was a successful lawyer. Her father who ran the very successful business at the horse breeding farm, did so until his much later years when he was stricken with Alzheimer’s. Unlike most horse breeders at the time who invested in stallions, he knew that great horses came just as much from mares as they did from stallions. So the majority of his stock were broodmares. He also had the foresight to make a very unique deal with the world’s richest man at the time Ogden Phipps. Every year, Ogden Phipps would breed his best stallion with Chenery’s two best mares. And instead of paying a stud fee, every year just before the mares were ready to drop their foals, they would have a coin toss in which the winner would take the pick of the unborn foal of their choosing. In 1970 the coin toss was for two mares one named Hasty Matilda and the other Sometthingroyal and the sire was considered to be one of the greatest horses of the generation, Bold Ruler, owned by Phipps. When it came time for the coin toss, word was that Phipps was hoping to choose the foal from Hasty Matilda, as she was 8 years old which was considered the prime age for a mare to give birth to a healthy foal. Somethingroyal was 17 years old and had already given birth to 13 foals. Bold Ruler was well known for his speed but also known for lacking in the stamina department when it came to the longer races that were expected of them in their third year leading up to the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. Even though Penny Chenery was a housewife and had left her life on the farm many years ago, before the coin toss, while looking through the stud books, she realized that even though Somethingroyal was much older and considered to be past her prime for producing foals, the grandsire for Somethingroyal was a horse named Princequillow who was known not only to possess speed but incredible stamina. The perfect combination for a horse to possibly win the Triple Crown. When it came to the coin toss, she knew that Phipps was going to want the foal from Hasty Matilda but she wanted to foal from Somethingroyal. Phipps ended up winning the coin toss and sure enough chose the Hasty Matilda foal. Leaving her with what everyone else in the horse world thought was a dud, but instead she ended up with Secretariat, or affectionately called Big Red by his owner, trainer, jockey, groom, and family secretary Elizabeth Ham, who came up with the name Secretariat.

Secretariat grew into a massive muscular horse of near perfect confirmation.He stood 16.2 hands (66 inches, 168 cm) when fully grown. He was noted for being exceptionally well-balanced, described as having “nearly perfect” confirmation and stride biomechanics. His chest was so large that he required a custom-made girth, and he was noted for his large, powerful, well-muscled hindquarters. An Australian trainer said of him, “He is incredible, an absolutely perfect horse. I never saw anything like him.”

Secretariat’s length of stride was considered large even after taking into account his large frame and strong build. While training for the Preakness Stakes, his stride was measured at 24 feet, 11 inches. His powerful hindquarters allowed him to unleash “devastating” speed and because he was so well-muscled and had significant cardiac capacity, he could simply out-gallop competitors at nearly any point in a race.

His weight before the Gotham Stakes in April 1973 was 1,155 pounds (524 kg). After completing the grueling Triple Crown, his weight on June 15 had dropped only 24 pounds, to 1,131 pounds. Secretariat was known for his appetite—during his three-year-old campaign, he ate 15 quarts of oats a day and 25 pounds of hay, enough for two pregnant mares to eat—and to keep his muscles in good condition, he needed fast workouts that could have won many a stakes race.

Seth Hancock of Claiborne Farm once said,
“You want to know who Secretariat is in human terms? Just imagine the greatest athlete in the world. The greatest. Now make him six-foot-three, the perfect height. Make him real intelligent and kind. And on top of that, make him the best-lookin’ guy ever to come down the pike. He was all those things as a horse.

After taking over operations of her family farm after the passing of her mother and then the subsequent stroke and passing of her father, Penny Chenery was forced to make some abrupt changes to the staff at The Meadow. Starting out with the immediate firing of their trainer Casey Hayes, who she had discovered had almost allowed her father to sell the two pregnant Bold Ruler mares to another farm that he also happened to work for, for half of their market value. In turn, it was said that farm was already planning on selling those four horses for over twice the cost of purchase. When Penny questioned him about this, he immediately deflected saying that the horses belonged to her father and it was he that was making the sale. Even though he was in an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s, and the trainer was hired to look out for his best interests. Penny called him out on it saying that if he had arranged for the sale of those four horses and would receive a percentage for the sale from the farm, not only would it have been dishonest to his employer but would have been a downright case of fraud. And she promptly fired him and he threatened to sue her as he had a contract and she said if she heard his name ever again he would be sent to prison for fraud. Now she had a farm without a trainer on staff and in desperation she turned to her father’s long time friend and adviser Bull Hancock to see if he could find another trainer for her. He immediately recommended that she hire the trainer Lucien Laurin, played by John Malkovitch, who was in the process of trying to retire and was a French Canadian that he said dressed like Superfly. When she initially went to visit Lucien, he said no, he had completely lost interest in horse racing and even though she was in a tight spot there was nothing at her farm to entice him to come there to train. As she was leaving she mentioned the mares pregnant by Bold Ruler and as he left he looked in the horse racing book and saw that one of the mares was Hasty Matilda and the other was Somethingroyal with the grand sire Princequilliow… And you saw a look of interest on his face. After the coin toss he showed up and asked who won and she told him it was Phipps and he picked Hasty Matilda. To which she answered of course and then said let me know when Somethingroyal was ready to drop her foal. Showing that he saw the same she did with the rare possibility of not only speed but stamina as well.

When Secretariat was born being the 14th foal of Somethingroyal, Penny Chenery, her young son John, Lucien Laurin, and longtime groom Eddie Sweat were all present for the birth. And astonished that Secretariat stood up 45 minutes after being born and began nursing within 30 minutes. Eddie Sweat spent more time with Secretariat than anyone else. He was responsible for his daily care, his feedings, his grooming, and actually stayed in the stable nearby the horse barely leaving his side. Everyone that worked with Eddie said he could communicate with the horses through his hands. And although Secretariat could sometimes be tough and hard to control for others, he was just a complete extension of Eddie as was Secretariat. They were inseparable and Eddie spent most of his days caring for him all the while talking to him, singing to him, and playing music to him on a portable radio as he would bathe him and brush him. With Secretariat almost dancing along to the music. A true horse whisperer in every sense of the word.

Elizabeth Ham was the secretary of Christopher Chenery chose the name Secretariat.

Lucien Laurent, the flamboyant trainer of Secretariat in the film, played by John Malkovitch

As he grew and began to train, it took a while for Secretariat to truly show his potential as a racehorse. The first race he was entered in he was rode by a young jockey with little experience and lost the race and came in fourth place. It was at this time, that both Penny Chenery and Lucian Laurent decided to pair Secretariat with a much more aggressive and well-trained jockey named Ronnie Turcotte. Once this decision was made, Secretariat began to win every race he was entered in. Winning the Horse of the Year award in 1972 for winning 7 out of 9 races and was only the second horse ever to win that award in that age group. Right after winning this award, Penny Chenery’s father had a stroke and subsequently passed away before he ran in the Triple Crown races.

Upon turning 3 and preparing for running the Triple Crown, he ran a race at a longer distance versus the horse that would become his main rival for the Triple Crown named Sham at Wood Memorial and had a stunning loss coming in third place making everyone believe that he being the son of Bold Ruler, was all speed but lacked the ability to go the distance of the longer races expected of the third year old horses. It was later found out that Secretariat was suffering from a large abscess in his mouth which caused him too much pain as he pulled on his bit, causing him to lose. Also preventing him from being able to eat in preparation for the Kentucky Derby. And was almost pulled from the race, but in a amazingly touching moment of Penny Chenery and Secretariat looking deep into each other’s eyes, seemingly communicating as they often did, the morning of the derby the abscess was gone, he ate his large amount of breakfast and went on to come from behind as he usually did and won the Kentucky Derby with a record time that still stands today.

Next they were off to the Preakness Stakes where once again Secretariat came from behind and set another record-winning time for the second of the 3rd Triple Crown races. Leaving Sham’s trainer Poncho, who was an overly aggressive, trainer that always put down Penny Chenery for being a housewife and not having a true place in horse racing.

When Big Red arrived at the Belmont Stakes, he was the number one choice to win the race. But still was thought by many, especially by Sham’s trainer and many others that he would be unable to go the distance. As the Belmont Stakes race was known as the graveyard of speed horses for its length of one and a half miles, and was the longest race of any of the Triple Crown races. There were only five horses running in the Belmont Stakes as many trainers conceited it was a match race between Sham and Secretariat. Before the race Lucien and Ronnie had made a plan of letting Secretariat do his normal come from behind routine as to not over work himself at the beginning of this long race. But to everyone’s surprise as soon as the gate opened Secretariat bolted out to an early lead and went to head to head with Sham around the first three quarters of the track pushing each other to a faster and faster pace that many in the audience could not believe that they would be able to keep that pace and it would be catastrophic. Coming around the last bend Secretariat surged ahead at blazing speeds passing Sham by four lengths, then eight lengths, then 11, 15, 20, 24, and crossing the wire at a blazing 31 lengths. To secure his place as the greatest racehorse in American history. This movie is so well done and is such a feel-good movie you will be sure to love it and want to watch it again and again. An inspirational story for the record books.