If you spent any time in Saratoga Springs this summer or followed this year’s Triple Crown races, you were surely reminded of the mighty Secretariat. Fifty years ago, Big Red swept the three races in record times that still stand today and ended a 25-year Triple Crown drought. He graced the covers of three national magazines in a single week in 1973 while “moving like a tremendous machine” on the track and providing a welcome distraction from the Watergate scandal.

Ron Turcotte, clad in the famous blue and white silks, was Secretariat’s jockey. In one of the most famous pictures in sports, we see Turcotte aboard Secretariat crossing the finish line thirty-one lengths in front of his closest pursuer, while treating himself to a sideways glimpse of his horse’s dazzling time in the Belmont Stakes. He is the last surviving member of Secretariat’s connections and still makes an annual pilgrimage to the Hall of Fame ceremonies in Saratoga Springs where he and Secretariat are enshrined.