Happy Birthday, Secretariat!

March 30, 1970 - October 4, 1989 (age 19)

On March 30, 1970, at 12:10 a.m. in Doswell, Virginia, a foal was born to Bold Ruler and Somethingroyal under the quiet sky at Meadow Stud. No one knew it yet, but this colt would carry a name that would thunder through time: Secretariat.

He was born into numbers as much as flesh and bone, for his chart was written with mathematics too uncanny to ignore. The stars above that night engraved themselves into his destiny, mapping every furlong of his future. And when the world watched him run, it was as if Heaven itself had pulled open a curtain, letting us glimpse creation in motion.

At his birth, Jupiter, ruler of Sagittarius (the centaur, half man and half horse), stood at 3° Scorpio. Three would become his sacred number.

At his birth, Mars measured 16° Taurus. Big Red stood 16 hands tall and ran a 16-month career. Mind blowin', right? Wait there's more ...

Secretariat’s chart reads like a numerologist’s poem:

From Meadow Stud in Virginia, where he first drew breath, Secretariat’s stars pointed like compass needles toward the very racetracks where his legend was written:

Before destiny claimed him as Secretariat, this colt nearly bore other names:

All strong names, but none could have contained the magnitude of what he became. It seems the universe knew this too, for when the letters of SECRETARIAT are rearranged, they reveal prophecies of his life’s story:

It is as though his very name was coded with his fate — a riddle left in plain sight, solved only when his hooves struck history.

And even today, the magic continues: decades later, there are still winning Triple Crown tickets from 1973 that remain uncashed, kept not for their dollar value, but as priceless relics of a moment too sacred to surrender.

Secretariat’s presence has also extended beyond the racetrack. In 1999, ESPN ranked him the 35th greatest athlete of the 20th century, the only non-human on the list. His statue stands at the Kentucky Horse Park, immortalized mid-stride, forever running.

He was more than a horse — he was a legend written in stars, numbers, and even the letters of his own name.

On October 4, 1989, at 11:45 a.m. in Paris, Kentucky, the time came to bid Big Red farewell. His suffering from laminitis had left no choice — and yet, even as his body returned to earth, his legend remained untouched. He was buried whole at Claiborne Farm, strength and silence in eternal repose.

Yet, in another way, his spirit still runs: in the hands of hopeful dreamers clutching a relic of glory. In 1973, among those who held winning tickets to his Triple Crown — tickets that paid just $2.20 on a $2 bet — more than 5,400 were never redeemed.

Some believe the holders kept them as sacred keepsakes, unwilling to trade a symbol of that perfect day for mere cash. Even now, one such ticket from the Belmont Stakes remains preserved in the archives, uncashed, signed by Penny Chenery, Lucien Laurin, and Ron Turcotte.

Perhaps that is part of his farewell: he leaves our world but doesn’t release us from holding on — to memory, to devotion, to the moment when flesh and spirit raced together under the sky.

When Secretariat passed, the world learned his secret — a heart nearly twice the size of an ordinary horse’s. That revelation struck me deeply, because my sister, who lived on Secretariat Court in a community where every street bore the name of a racehorse, spent her adult life teaching me about love. She turned me on to Louise Hay. A gift that taught me that love itself is the medicine for everything.

Just as Secretariat’s great heart carried him to glory, my sister’s heart carried me toward understanding what matters most. LOVE.

You got to feel it, think it, and be it.

Anything else is dis-ease.

Getting back to Horses. Well, it seems, Horses have always been woven into my family’s story. My great-great grandfather on my mother’s side was a horseman in Italy. My grandfather on my fathers' side, in his own time, once rescued a horse from drowning in the Elizabeth River — an act so brave it made the local paper. My sister’s husband’s uncle, John, ran a horse and carriage business and sometimes bringing his teams down to Secretariat Court just to delight the children. I cared for those horses myself for a short time, brushing their coats, feeding them, listening to the quiet language of their eyes.

Perhaps all this is why I cannot watch a horse run without crying. Their power and their grace strike something inside me that feels older than memory. Even when I bet on them, it’s never just about the wager; it’s about honoring that bond, that connection across time, from the horsemen in Italy to learning the magic of Secretariat thundering into history.

And then there was the day Uncle John passed. My niece and nephew were with me in Colorado, playing in the backyard pool. As I spoke with my sister on the phone to share the news, I glanced out my window — and for the first time in over three years of living there, I saw a horse in the park across the street. It had come for a child’s birthday party, but to me, in that moment, it was something else: a messenger. I brought the kids over to pet it, and we all knew. Uncle John had come to be present with them, one last time.

Happy Birthday, Secretariat — you are proof that love, like a champion’s run, never truly ends. May your Heart thunder forever in the stars.