Secretariat Art Print, Thirty-One Lengths, Belmont 1973, Vintage Black and White Wall Art

Thirty-one lengths. On 9 June 1973 Secretariat took the lead at Belmont Park and never gave it back. He ran the mile and a half in 2:24, a time no horse has beaten since, and he finished thirty-one lengths clear of the second horse.

The famous photograph of that finish shows something strange for a championship race: an empty track behind the winner. He was the first Triple Crown winner in twenty-five years, and he closed it out alone.

When he died in 1989 the autopsy recorded a heart of roughly twenty-two pounds, about three times the average for a thoroughbred. Nobody had known while he was running. The engine was simply larger.

Stories worth passing on, not just remembering.