“They’re on the turn
and Secretariat is blazing along…Secretariat is widening now, he’s moving like
a tremendous machine! Secretariat by
twelve…Secretariat by fourteen lengths… He’s all alone. He’s out there almost a
1/16 of a mile away from the rest of the horses. He’s into the stretch; he leads this field by
18 lengths. Secretariat has opened up a
22 length lead. He is going to be the
Triple Crown winner! This most magnificent animal has today run the most
sensational Belmont Stakes in the history of this race…almost unbelievable!”[i]
Somewhere in eternity, there’s a blueprint for the way God
intended to make a horse, and his name is Secretariat. Standing at 16 ½ hands and weighing 1,175
lbs. this gorgeous chestnut colt with three white socks and a narrow blaze was
physically flawless. But it was something else entirely
that made him more famous than Pegasus. Secretariat inherited the
famous “x-factor” from historic racehorse Eclipse, a gene producing larger than
average sized hearts. Weighing over 22
lbs., Secretariat’s heart was two-and-three-quarters larger than any of his
competitors, allowing him to process oxygen at breakneck speed. If, according to Plato, the
created is a silhouette of the divine, Secretariat broke the rule. There are mere shadows in this world and then
there are Forms, Secretariat was the later.[ii]
As a colt, Secretariat burst onto the racing scene as a two-year-old, but it was
the following year when he achieved mythological status. Winning the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness,
Secretariat set his sights on the Triple Crown, a feat not accomplished in twenty-five long years of horse racing.
No one knew how the young purebred would respond to such a grueling test, but when owner Penny Chenery saw him that June 9 morning, she knew something special was about to happen. "That was the day he just felt like running"[iii],
and boy did he ever. As Secretariat
broke from the gate, Jockey Ronnie Turcotte simply unbridled his horse, sat
back and just let him do what he was born to do, run. His first ¾ of a mile was the fastest recorded
at Belmont Park, and that was only the beginning. On the back stretch Secretariat hit yet
another gear, widening his lead over Sham by twelve lengths and as the horses
turned for home Secretariat was all alone, seemingly racing on his own
track. He won by an historic 31 lengths
while setting a track record by over two seconds. No other horse before or since has covered the
1 ½ mile track faster; his two minutes were transcendent. “It was like the Lord was holding the
reigns. Secretariat was one of His creatures and he simply whispered to him
‘Go’…and that horse really went. It
was…supernatural.”[iv]
Years later, Jack Nicklaus shared with CBS commentator Haywood Hale Brown that
while watching the Belmont from his living room, he was so moved that he stood
and cheered, and then he wept. Nicklaus
wondered aloud to Brown at what made him cry.
In an epiphany, Hale Brown said “Jack, don’t you understand? All of your life, in your game you’ve been
striving for perfection. At the end of
the Belmont, you saw it.”[v]
Whether glimpsed in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Michelangelo’s
David, Brunelleschi’s Dome or the fury of a thoroughbred, perfection is the
divine marriage of truth and beauty manifest in the natural. We long for it, we seek it and in those rare
instances, sometimes we even find it. And every time we do, we are reminded
that God is very near, almost too
near. It’s as if heaven is
breaking loose all around us, and as she breaches her bonds, pouring her beauty into the
physical world, death, decay and dissolution are forgotten, if for just that moment. And often, that moment is enough. It is in
these rare instants that God gently reminds us that He is here, that He is real and
that He is good. And yes, He even reveals himself
to us through the pounding hooves of his mighty stead. “Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? He
paws in the valley and rejoices in his strength…with fierceness and rage he
swallows up the ground.”[vi]
While poetry, music, art and sport display grandeur, we
often meet perfection in the mundane. Wherever
love conquers hatred, there is perfection.
Whenever justice flows like a river and righteousness like a mighty
stream, there is perfection.[vii] When the old are not left alone, and the
strong learn how to care for the weak, there is perfection. When children are safe in their beds and
there is no longer violence in the streets, there is perfection.[viii] When divorce, depression and disease cease
their destruction, there is perfection. Across
the board and bit by bit, God’s kingdom and character materialize as His
perfect, new creation is revealed. And in those moments, in those rare opportunities when eternity finally shows herself amid the temporal, it is altogether good
that we stand and cheer, and sometimes even cry.
[i]
Anderson, Chic. CBS Commentator, The
Belmont Stakes 1973.
[ii]
Reference to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
[iii]
Chenery, Penny. Owner of Secretariat. In an Interview with ESPN.
[iv]
Lynch, Pat. New York Racing Society.
Interview with ESPN.
[v]
Brown, Haywood Hale. Interview with ESPN.
[vi]
Job 39: 19 and 21.
[vii]
Amos 5: 24.
[viii]
Mullins, Rich. Lyrics from the Song “The
Maker of Noses”.
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