Recently I bought the movie "Secretariat". I was a teenager when the big red horse made his stunning triumph in the Triple Crown races back in 1973. At that time I was obsessed with horse racing and horses in general. You might blame it on reading too many "Black Stallion" novels, but eventually I did make it to the racetrack where I worked very briefly as a hotwalker, someone who walks horses to cool them down after they exercise or race. It is the lowest job on the racetrack totem pole. Shoveling manure is actually higher, believe it or not.
So I was very interested in how Disney would depict Secretariat's life and career. The first thing I noticed was how they described his owner Penny Tweedy as "a housewife who risked everything to make him a champion." Excuse me, but if she was a housewife, she was a housewife with connections. (What Malcolm Gladwell would call an example of an "outlier.") She inherited Meadow Stable from her parents who were not exactly backyard breeders. Not if you have a couple of mares in foal to Bold Ruler, who was the leading sire at that time. No, they were pretty high up in racing circles, which meant that they had the means to be in that game. They were not breeding and and racing cheap claimers. The people I worked for, were. World of difference.
Anyway, the Disney folks, not content with the actual facts of Secretariat's career, had to jazz things up by blowing out of proportion the matter of the $6 million inheritance tax that Ms. Tweedy had to pay upon the death of her father. They made it sound like Meadow Stable's future was at stake. Well, it might have been, but what the Disney people did not mention was that the year before Ms. Tweedy had a Derby and Belmont winner in the form of Riva Ridge, who might well have been the first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948, if the Preakness track had been dry instead of a muddy mess. Again, you don't have horses of that quality if you are operating on a shoestring. And where was she coming up with the money to enter Riva Ridge, Secretariat and Angle Light (who is mentioned in the movie, but not the fact that he was Secretariat's stablemate) in Triple Crown-class races if she was indeed on the brink of losing the farm?
They also made a big deal about her being a woman in a male-dominated business. Well, I hate to tell you, but women were owning and operating Thoroughbred stables long before Ms. Tweedy entered the scene. Where the real breakthroughs were happening at that time as far as women were concerned was among track workers. The first women jockeys were beginning to appear. Women excercise riders. And hotwalkers like me. There might have even been female grooms. These are the people behind the scenes who you never hear about and who have more actual contact with a horse like Secretariat than his owner. And when Secretariat won his victories, these were the people who were not invited to the glitzy parties afterwards. I was surprised that the movie actually named his groom, Eddie Sweat, by name. From all accounts if anyone had a mystical bond with him, it was Eddie, not Ms. Tweedy.
When I was at the track, the going rate of pay for hotwalkers was two dollars a horse per day. I'm not sure what grooms made, but nobody was living very high. We slept in the same stables as the horses. There was no health care. If you were injured on the job (an ever-present possibility) that was your bad luck. There is a scene in "Secretariat" where he is shown with a chain around his noseband. This is for control. If the horse acted up for any reason my job was to jerk hard on this chain, causing pain. I didn't like it but it was necessary. Believe me, you don't want to be on the other end of the shank when an 1,100-lb Thoroughbred decides to have a meltdown in close quarters. You are responsible for that horse and if it gets hurt (not you) you are the one who will have to answer for it. The horse is more important that you.
I still thrill to see a horse in full gallop, but I came away from that experience feeling lied to by those who glamorize horse racing. The reality is far, far different. It's a rough environment with rough people, most of whom are pretty desperate. Someone had to be looking after me, because I escaped relatively unharmed. (While I was there, I learned of another hotwalker my age at another track who was stabbed to death during an argument.) I will never forget what the women's restroom attendant told me when she learned I was leaving, "Honey, I am so glad you are going back home. You don't belong here. You are too nice. If you stayed, they'd turn you into a junkie or a whore."
No, my experience was a far cry from Walter Farley's "Black Stallion" series.
So I was very interested in how Disney would depict Secretariat's life and career. The first thing I noticed was how they described his owner Penny Tweedy as "a housewife who risked everything to make him a champion." Excuse me, but if she was a housewife, she was a housewife with connections. (What Malcolm Gladwell would call an example of an "outlier.") She inherited Meadow Stable from her parents who were not exactly backyard breeders. Not if you have a couple of mares in foal to Bold Ruler, who was the leading sire at that time. No, they were pretty high up in racing circles, which meant that they had the means to be in that game. They were not breeding and and racing cheap claimers. The people I worked for, were. World of difference.
Anyway, the Disney folks, not content with the actual facts of Secretariat's career, had to jazz things up by blowing out of proportion the matter of the $6 million inheritance tax that Ms. Tweedy had to pay upon the death of her father. They made it sound like Meadow Stable's future was at stake. Well, it might have been, but what the Disney people did not mention was that the year before Ms. Tweedy had a Derby and Belmont winner in the form of Riva Ridge, who might well have been the first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948, if the Preakness track had been dry instead of a muddy mess. Again, you don't have horses of that quality if you are operating on a shoestring. And where was she coming up with the money to enter Riva Ridge, Secretariat and Angle Light (who is mentioned in the movie, but not the fact that he was Secretariat's stablemate) in Triple Crown-class races if she was indeed on the brink of losing the farm?
They also made a big deal about her being a woman in a male-dominated business. Well, I hate to tell you, but women were owning and operating Thoroughbred stables long before Ms. Tweedy entered the scene. Where the real breakthroughs were happening at that time as far as women were concerned was among track workers. The first women jockeys were beginning to appear. Women excercise riders. And hotwalkers like me. There might have even been female grooms. These are the people behind the scenes who you never hear about and who have more actual contact with a horse like Secretariat than his owner. And when Secretariat won his victories, these were the people who were not invited to the glitzy parties afterwards. I was surprised that the movie actually named his groom, Eddie Sweat, by name. From all accounts if anyone had a mystical bond with him, it was Eddie, not Ms. Tweedy.
When I was at the track, the going rate of pay for hotwalkers was two dollars a horse per day. I'm not sure what grooms made, but nobody was living very high. We slept in the same stables as the horses. There was no health care. If you were injured on the job (an ever-present possibility) that was your bad luck. There is a scene in "Secretariat" where he is shown with a chain around his noseband. This is for control. If the horse acted up for any reason my job was to jerk hard on this chain, causing pain. I didn't like it but it was necessary. Believe me, you don't want to be on the other end of the shank when an 1,100-lb Thoroughbred decides to have a meltdown in close quarters. You are responsible for that horse and if it gets hurt (not you) you are the one who will have to answer for it. The horse is more important that you.
I still thrill to see a horse in full gallop, but I came away from that experience feeling lied to by those who glamorize horse racing. The reality is far, far different. It's a rough environment with rough people, most of whom are pretty desperate. Someone had to be looking after me, because I escaped relatively unharmed. (While I was there, I learned of another hotwalker my age at another track who was stabbed to death during an argument.) I will never forget what the women's restroom attendant told me when she learned I was leaving, "Honey, I am so glad you are going back home. You don't belong here. You are too nice. If you stayed, they'd turn you into a junkie or a whore."
No, my experience was a far cry from Walter Farley's "Black Stallion" series.
