October 4, 1989—Secretariat’s Last Day
Sculptor Jocelyn Russell pays her respects to Secretariat’s gravesite.
October 4, 2025
October 4, 1989—Secretariat’s Last Day
On a sad day in October, 36 years ago, Secretariat died at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky. The people who loved and cared for him in retirement had undertaken the heartbreaking task of freeing him from the piercing pain of laminitis, an incurable inflammation of the hooves.
Horses must stand to graze, eat, or sleep—essentially all the functions of daily living. When standing became too painful, there was only one way to help Secretariat. Sadly, the nineteen-year-old stallion, the wonder horse, needed that kind of help.
Sportswriter Bill Nack, who wrote the definitive chronicle of the big horse’s life in Secretariat, the Making of a Champion—and who described his time with him as “the richest, grandest, damnedest, most exhilarating time of my life”—happened to visit Claiborne president Seth Hancock the day before. Seth warned Nack that Secretariat might not make it. “I sank back in my chair. ''I'm not ready for this,'' he told him.
“How do you think I feel?' Hancock said. “Ten thousand people come to this farm every year, and all they want to see is Secretariat. They don't give a hoot about the other studs. 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. He isn't even a horse anymore. He's a legend. So how do you think I feel?''
According to Nack, “Just before noon on October 4, the horse was led haltingly into a van next to the stallion barn, and there a concentrated barbiturate was injected into his jugular. Forty-five seconds later, there was a crash as the stallion collapsed.”
Upon hearing the news, Nack found himself “leaning with my back against a wall and sobbing for a long time with my face in my hands.” Later, he eulogized him in an eloquent tribute in Sports Illustrated called ‘Pure Heart’, a moving article of pure adulation, still available online.
Many Americans also reeled. I was at my office in San Francisco that day, working for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. When I walked into the break room, page one of the New York Times sports section was spread out on the table. “I looked in horror at the headline and gasped. “That’s my horse!”
My colleague Robert Rubin said, “That’s my horse too! I used to see him race in New York. I loved him!” I said, “No, really. That’s my horse. My mom is Penny Chenery,” and I pointed to the photo of her leading Big Red on the track. Robert looked at me incredulously. I had never mentioned this fact to my co-workers before—it had just never come up. Suddenly, Robert and I were sharing long-remembered stories of the horse and his amazing career.
Mom was even more shocked. Her first inkling of it came when a reporter phoned to ask for her reaction to his death. Alone at the time at her house on Long Island, Mom was so devastated that she felt compelled to drive to Belmont Park to share her grief with other horse people.
When I asked later how Seth could have been so callous, she explained that he had warned her days before, but that on that awful day, everyone was so heartbroken and upset that they just forgot. It took her a long time to recover from the sorrow.
If you visit Secretariat’s grave at Claiborne, lying just inside the cemetery’s brick pillars, you will almost always find roses propped against his headstone—and pennies. Neither new nor old fans will ever forget the horse with the big heart that gave us all so much joy and inspiration.
Light a candle for him on Saturday and be glad that he lived for a time on this earth and that his beloved team—including Ronnie--is now all reunited at that big racetrack in the sky.
©Kate Tweedy
