If you’ve ever wondered why racehorses have such odd names, well, it’s partly because you can’t use a name that’s already been taken. Claiborne Farm had a long list of names they wanted for their horse, including “Scepter,” “Royal Line,” “Something Special,” and “Games of Chance.” The name “Secretariat” was actually their sixth choice after “Deo Volente,” and it was suggested by Elizabeth Ham, who was — wait for it — Penny Chenery’s secretary.  

According to Mental Floss, though, Ham actually chose the name because she’d once worked at the United Nations in Geneva, and that’s the seat of the old League of Nations (pictured) secretariat. A secretariat, by the way, is the permanent administrative department of a government organization. Riiiiight. Like we’re supposed to believe you named the horse “Secretariat” after some boring administrative office and not because you were, you know, his owner’s secretary.

By the time Secretariat left the gate at the Hopeful Stakes in August 1972, everyone knew he was a great horse. But during that one minute, 16.2 seconds, there were some not-so-subtle hints as to just how great a horse he actually was.

According to Sports Illustrated, Secretariat was the last horse out of the gate, and by the time the pack got to the far turn, he was still in ninth place. Then he swung to the outside. Just after the half-mile mark, Secretariat started to pick up speed, and he finished the race six lengths ahead of the second-place winner. His time was stunning — he’d covered the last quarter of the race in 22 seconds, accelerating from last place to first place in 290 yards.

This would have been amazing for any horse, but keep in mind that this was during Secretariat’s two-year-old season. “I’ve never seen a 2-year-old do that,” said one racetracker and handicapper who watched the race. “He looked like a 4-year-old out there.”

Coming into the Wood Memorial in April 1973, Secretariat was riding high. Or, his jockey was riding high on him, or something. Anyway, a lot of people viewed the colt as unstoppable at that point.

The Wood Memorial is a Kentucky Derby prep race. At nine furlongs, or a bit over a mile, it is a test of a horse’s stamina and still a furlong shorter than the Derby. Secretariat ran the race unenthusiastically and finished third, leaving many people to speculate that he might be a speed horse rather than a distance horse. According to Sports Illustrated, no son of Secretariat’s sire, Bold Ruler, had ever gone on to win any of the three Triple Crown races. He’d produced fast horses, but none of his progeny had the stamina it took to win those longer races.

Secretariat’s trainer later blamed his poor performance on an abscess inside the horse’s mouth, which sounds plausible in retrospect, since Secretariat very obviously did go on to prove that he had the stamina to win not one but all three Triple Crown races.

After his poor performance at the Wood Memorial, Secretariat had more than a few doubters. Going into the Kentucky Derby, Secretariat’s odds were 3-2, the same as Angle Light, the horse that beat him in the Wood Memorial. So people still thought he might win, but they also thought Angle Light might win.

According to Secretariat.com, Secretariat left the gate near the back of the pack and cruised along in 11th place for a bit. Then he started passing horses. By the time he reached the far turn, he was in fifth place, and he gradually passed the next three horses, too, until he was head-to-head with the pack leader. The two shadowed each other for about 100 yards, and then Secretariat gradually pulled away, winning by two and a half lengths.

There were a few really remarkable things about that race. First, Secretariat set a track record that still stands today: 1 minute, 59.4 seconds. Second, Secretariat had accelerated through the entire race, which is the opposite of how most racehorses do things. Most racehorses start strong and slow gradually — even when they appear to be accelerating at the end of a race, they are really going slower than they did out of the gate because at that point, all the horses are tired. So Secretariat not only won the Kentucky Derby, but he did it totally backwards.

Racehorses have grueling careers, but they tend to be short – it’s not uncommon for a racehorse to retire at four, and Secretariat’s career ended in November of his third year. A lot of horses retire because of an injury, but Secretariat went out on a high note after his six-and-a-half-length victory at the Canadian International. Why did he retire? Claiborne Farms needed his stud career to begin early, because money.

They weren’t going to let him go without a proper farewell, though. On November 6, 1973, Secretariat arrived at the Aqueduct racetrack in New York, where he won his first race in July 1972. But he wasn’t there to run — he was there for a party. He even had the whole day named after him: “Farewell to Secretariat Day.”

According to Secretariat’s Meadow Blog, though, Secretariat was the only one there who didn’t feel like celebrating. His jockey jogged him to the quarter pole and back so that everyone could get a good look at him, but that kind of just pissed the big horse off. In fact, Secretariat’s trainer later said he was so mad he wasn’t there to race that he ate Penny Chenery’s bouquet while posing for photos in the winner’s circle.

With good care, horses can live more than 30 years, and Secretariat had the best care. But he still died relatively young, at the age of 19, after a tragic bout with a debilitating disease called laminitis. Horses with laminitis have inflammation in the structures inside the foot that secure the bone to the hoof. If it’s bad enough, the bone might separate from the hoof wall, and the bone can actually sink down and penetrate the bottom of the horse’s hoof. It’s a painful condition, and horses suffering from bad cases of it often have to be euthanized.

Secretariat developed laminitis on Labor Day of 1989. According to Sports Illustrated, he fought the illness for a month and seemed to be improving, but then he took an unexpected turn for the worse. He was in so much pain that Claiborne Farms had to make the heartbreaking decision to end his life.

The big horse had one final surprise for everyone, though: The veterinarian who performed his necropsy discovered that Secretariat had a heart that was almost twice as big as a normal horse. “It wasn’t pathologically enlarged,” he later said. “All the chambers and the valves were normal. It was just larger. I think it told us why he was able to do what he did.”