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 enlarge | Author: William Nack
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy Used: $0.75
You Save: $16.20 (96%)
New (37) Used (45) from $0.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 100089
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0306811332
Dewey Decimal Number: 798
EAN: 9780306811333
ASIN: 0306811332
Publication Date: April 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Standard used condition.
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| Customer Reviews:
 The Heart Of A Titan February 25, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Ask anyone in the Thoroughbred industry who is 40-ish what was a major factor in getting into the game and I wager one response will be watching Big Red in 1972 and 1973.
Secretariat dominated the sport and captured the oftentimes fleeting attention of American pop culture in his memorable Triple Crown performances and beyond. To show his staying power, there are still hats, T-shirts, mugs, beanie dolls, bobbleheads and other souvenirs that celebrate his iconic career.
Author William Nack presents a truly insider's account of Secretariat through unprecedented access to the team around the racer. The reader rides the unique pace in the barn area, the highs & lows in training & racing and gets a better understanding to the controversial decision to retire Big Red after his three year old season.
The current edition includes a moving tribute to Big Red that initially appeared in Sports Illustrated. Secretariat was euthanized due to complications from laminitis, the malady that ultimately doomed Barbaro.
Secretariat was a larger than life athlete and Nack captures the nuances of what it took to become a champion.
Best I've Read February 4, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
William Nack's book, Secretariat: The Making of A Champion, is the most wonderful, best written, book I've ever read! If you're a horse lover like I am, and if Secretariat is still your "hero", you will love this book. Once you get started reading, you'll find it hard to put down.
I'm an avid reader of non-fiction and this is the only book I've read twice from cover to cover. Somehow I lost the copy I read in 2003 and I had to read it again. I'm so glad I did. I think I enjoyed it even more the second time.
Mr.Nack puts you on Big Red's back throughout every race. You can hear the applause and screams from the grandstands. You can feel the power of that magnificient horse Ron Turcotte felt while in the saddle. You can almost hear his hoof beats on the track and on the turf.
Mr. Nack brings it all alive for you in his pages. He managed to bring Secretariat alive for me once more. My thanks to Mr.Nack for writing such a wonderful book about the horse I loved so much and that I still love today.
 Secretariat the Overrated December 25, 2006
3 out of 25 found this review helpful
A major, and I mean MAJOR, problem with this book is that there is NO INDEX! Who ever heard of a non-fiction book like this without an index? If you want to find anything, it's impossible. And the chapter heads aren't any help either.
Nack includes a lot of material that I was not interested in. When I bought and read this book, I thought Secretariat was the be-all and end-all of horseracing, and I didn't care to learn all about his background and all about every person who had ever come in contact with him.
There are very few photos, at least in my paperback edition, and these are in black and white, denying me a view of Secretariat's beautiful chestnut coat.
Secretariat, when he was three, had 12 starts, but won only 9, came in second twice, and third, once. He lost 3 races--STAKES races, to average horses. Not exactly a great record. Lots of horses have had better sophomore years. Once he was overtaken in the stretch by another horse, and another time he couldn't catch the leader in the stretch. He was known to run poorly on off=tracks. He was fortunate that all of the Triple Crown races were run on fast tracks. If one had been sloppy--who knows?
Secretariat's immortality is based on three things:
1) His incredible Belmont, a fantastic feat that no one can take away from him. However, his only real competition, Sham, dropped out early, so he was in essence simply running against the clock.
2) The fact that he was the first horse in 25 years to win the Triple Crown. He broke the jinx that had prevented several excellent horses before him from turning horseracing's hat trick.
3) He was a gorgeous-looking horse. How important that is in the TV age! If you watch TV, how often do you see ugly or plain people?
Citation, the previous winner of the Triple Crown in 1948, had 20 starts, with 19 wins and one second (in a stakes TRIAL, with a new rider, Eddie Arcaro, who took full blame for the loss). In the Derby, on a muddy track, he ran down Coaltown, one of the 100 best horses of the century, to win by 3. In the Preakness, again on a muddy track, he won by 5. In the Belmont, on a fast track, he was in first place wire to wire, winning easily by 8 lengths. Then, he won the Sysonby Mile against the best older sprinters in the land. THREE DAYS LATER, he raced in the Jockey Club Gold Cup when it was two miles, beat the best stayers in the country, including Phalanx, the 1947 Belmont winner, by 7 lengths. Then, 2 weeks later, he ran in the 1-5/8 mile Empire City cup in Yonkers and won again, beating older horses. He finished his year by winning two races in California!
Secretariat never did anything in his career to even come close to what Citation did. Yet people deify Secretariat and totally ignore Citation. I hope to rectify this soon by honoring Citation with his own website. Look for it!
Secretariat - The ONE True Champion December 23, 2006
As a lover of horse racing, you can't help but love Secretariat as well. Secretariat: The Making of a Champion is an excellent read for horse racing lovers everywhere. You learn so much about what went on behind the scenes and how great of a horse Secretariat really was. William Nack provides an excellent narrative from the day Secretariat was foaled by Somthingroyal to the day of his last race.
If you love horse racing and Secretariat, there is no better book than this. You learn about the life of Penny Chenery to the life of this great red horse. You can see every stride he takes as he wins the Belmont by 31 lengths. An absolutely amazing book with great detail and insight.
 a great story told with too many words September 10, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The story of Secretariat is among the most thrilling in all the history of American sports and popular culture because it was one of the very rare instances in which an athletic achievement of truly mythological proportions was witnessed live on television by millions upon millions throughout the nation. With the most famous, accomplished and beloved animal performer of all time as a subject, one would think that by now there would be a dozen Secretariat books and a couple of movies as well (Seabiscuit? - hmmph!). Sadly, in the former category we only have this earnest but flawed volume by veteran horse racing writer William Nack.
While the narration of the Belmont is scintillating, there are two major flaws which prevent this from being the biography that is worthy of Big Red:
1) a shockingly skimpy collection of photographs (there are several mentions of Secretariat's numerous magazine covers but no images of any of them!)
2) tedious recitations of Secretariat's lineage (chapters 3-6) and the biographies of every last member of his breeding syndicate (chapter 19) which add nothing in the way of either reminiscence or insight.
Until we reach the long overdue time when others join in, Secretariat's flag is now being held highest by the absolutely brilliant ESPN SportsCentury documentary that airs on ESPN Classic during every Triple Crown season. It is a must to see that show before buying this book.
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