Ron Turcotte, the jockey who rode Secretariat to not just victory but a historically unmatched level of dominance, died Friday, his family announced. He was 84 years old.
It was Turcotte atop Secretariat as it won the Triple Crown in 1973, setting speed records in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes that still stand to this day. That Belmont performance in particular has become shorthand for leaving the field in the dust, with a record 31 lengths separating him and second place.
The racing world has yearned for a similar horse so much that every horse in all three Triple Crown races this year were descendants of Secretariat.
Before Secretariat, Turcotte had won each of the Triple Crown races once, taking the Kentucky and Belmont with Riva Ridge the year prior and the Preakness with Tom Rolfe in 1965. His career as a jockey ended five years after Secretariat in 1978, when a fall from a horse at Belmont Park, the same track as the greatest performance of his career, rendered him a paraplegic.
Turcotte was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1979 and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1980. By the count in the announcement of his death, he won 3,023 races from 1961 to 1978 and rode horses to a lifetime earnings of $28,606,490, at a time when purses topped out in the low six figures for Triple Crown races.
In the announcement, Turcotte’s friend and business partner Leonard Lusky praised his character beyond what he did with horses:
“Ron was a great jockey and an inspiration to so many, both within and outside the racing world. While he reached the pinnacle of success in his vocation, it was his abundance of faith, courage, and kindness that was the true measure of his greatness.”
His family agreed:
“The world may remember Ron as the famous jockey of Secretariat, but to us he was a wonderful husband, a loving father, grandfather, and a great horseman.
Per the Associated Press, Turcotte was the last remaining member of Secretariat’s team. Owner Penny Chenery died in 2017, trainer Lucien Laurin died in 2000, groom Eddie Sweat died in 1998 and exercise rider Charlie Davis died in 2018. The horse itself died in 1989, at 19 years old and after siring 663 foals.
As Turcotte recalled to the AP in 2023, the horse made his job easy:
“I could make five, six moves with him in a race. A normal horse you could make one or two,” Turcotte told The Associated Press by phone from his home in Canada. “Down the lane I never asked him to run. He just galloped to the wire very easily.”
“There’s never been a horse like him … and I doubt there will be another one.”
Turcotte has been immortalized in several statues of Secretariat, including bronze ones at Pimlico and Belmont. He is survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Gaetane, and their four daughters Lynn, Ann, Tina and Tammy.
