Secretariat

     BANG! The horses shoot out of the gate, hooves pounding, hearts racing, and through the midst of the chaos, one horse comes out triumphantly: Secretariat.

     Recently my mom and I saw the movie Secretariat because as a child I was enthralled with horses as was my mother.  We thoroughly enjoyed the movie because it gave an insight into the remarkable story of Secretariat and his owner, Penny Tweedy. Tweedy's father passed and she felt it was her duty to take over his farm and his horses. Tweedy attended a coin toss in her father's place to determine which foal (both offspring of prestigious race horses) that she would get. Although Tweedy lost the coin toss, in her mind she didn't. She knew the foal she had won had the genes to be a champion, and the foal won in the coin toss is known today as Secretariat.  

   Despite all of the nay-sayers who were against Tweedy, including her husband and brother,  Tweedy's "woman's intuition" was spot-on and she knew a champion when she saw one. As many horse enthusiasts and racing fanatics know, Secretariat won the Triple Crown* in 1973, and no horse has done it since.

    Although Secretariat is a warm, uplifting, family film, Tweedy's son recently commented about his opinions on Disney's portrayal. He said, "The movie does, indeed, glamorize and improve on my family's situation in the early 1970's..." Tweedy later went through a divorce with her husband, which the movie does not mention.

   Although the movie has been criticized for its "glamorous" portrayal of the Tweedy family,  Penny Tweedy was a a groundbreaking woman who thrust herself into the racing world which in the 1970's was mainly all men. Tweedy's perseverance, intuition and faith are admirable and make for a wonderful, heart warming film.

*triple crown - The triple crown consists of three races: The Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont. Arguably the most important three races in a horses career, if they are lucky enough to make it there.