Triple Crown winning jockey Ron Turcotte makes charitable appearance in Ocean City

Last Updated on Monday, August 06, 2012 02:07 pm Written by Cindy Nevitt Saturday, August 04, 2012 11:21 am

Turcotte receives key to the city by Mayor Gillian prior to appearance

Triple Crown winning jockey Ron Turcotte signs autographs Saturday during a charitable appearance at Stainton’s.

OCEAN CITY — There are 10 jockeys who have won the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing and only one, Eddie Arcaro, who has won it twice.

Ron Turcotte, who aboard Secretariat in 1973 set record Triple Crown times that still stand, came closest to being the only one to accomplish the feat back-to-back.

“It’s not meant to be easy,” Turcotte said Saturday afternoon during an appearance at Stainton’s Gallery of Shops on Asbury Avenue. “You need a horse that can handle all sorts of race tracks. The horse has to be able to run on sloppy tracks, slippery tracks, muddy tracks and fast tracks. He has to be able to handle all surfaces and different textures.”

Alas, Turcotte’s 1972 mount, Riva Ridge, was not able to handle the wet track at the Preakness, costing the jockey his first shot at the Triple Crown.

“Riva Ridge could not stand up in the mud,” Turcotte said. “If it had been sunny in Baltimore, he would have won. But it was a soupy track.”

That was one of the many memories Turcotte shared with fans and admirers who paid $25 for his signature – with the money benefiting five different charities, including the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund – during his four-hour stop in Ocean City.

During his visit, Turcotte was presented with a key to the city from Mayor Jay Gillian.

Turcotte’s appearance was arranged by Mays Landing resident Mike Yanniello, owner of the “It’s My Derby” boutique at Stainton’s, and Len Lusky, president of www.Secretariat.com, who schedules events for Turcotte. The two men, who met at the Kentucky Derby, which Yanniello estimates he has attended about a dozen times, said this is the first time Turcotte has done a meet-and-greet on this scale.

Turcotte generally makes five major appearances annually on behalf of charities, usually at such venues as Belmont Park and Saratoga Race Course, both in New York; Arlington Park Race Track in Illinois, and the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Ky. A paraplegic confined to a wheelchair since 1978 when his stumbling mount pitched him headlong into the track at Belmont, Turcotte is actively involved in the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund and the Secretariat Foundation, hoping to increase interest in equine research, therapy and care.

At 71, the former jockey is still trim in body, firm in handshake and clear in memory.

It was at the Derby that Yanniello first met Turcotte. “Ron is very approachable,” he said.

Karen Reilly of Ventnor, who obtained Turcotte’s autograph – “To Karen with Love, Ron Turcotte” – on a photo collage she purchased through Secretariat.com and brought with her to the event, agreed.

“He’s a very nice man,” she said. “I am a huge fan of this story, this horse, this jockey. You know you are never going to meet the horse, but you don’t think you’re ever going to meet the man, either.”

Steve Yeck, a Philadelphia resident who owns a summer home in Ocean City, echoed that emotion.

“Secretariat is the greatest horse that ever lived,” he said. “The chance to meet the guy who rode him, plus it’s a charitable event, brought me in.”

Reilly, who was 13 years old when Turcotte won the Triple Crown, does not remember the historic day the way other fans, such as Yeck and Karen Jennings, do.

Yeck recalls he was at his girlfriend’s high school graduation the day Turcotte won the third leg of the Triple Crown.

“I missed it and had to wait to watch it on the news that night,” he said, harkening back to a time before VCRs and DVRs existed. “I knew he won. My dad couldn’t wait and he told me.”

Yeck, carrying the iconic photo of Turcotte looking back at the Belmont field he bested by 31 lengths, one of horse racing’s greatest margins, gestured to Turcotte’s autograph on the photo and asked, “Do I think he was the best ever? Absolutely.”

Asked by Reilly if he knew how much of a lead he had on the Belmont field, Turcotte responded, “I knew how far ahead I was the whole time. The announcer was calling it.”

Jennings, an Egg Harbor Township resident, said she could hear from her bedroom window at her childhood home in Haddon Township the races being called at Garden State Racetrack. By the time she was a high school junior, she was slipping out of the house to sneak into the track. After graduation, she skipped out on college, married a horse trainer and spent 28 years breeding thoroughbreds.

She brought the album “Secretariat, Horse of the Century” with her to Stainton’s for Turcotte to autograph. The album, which she picked up for $15 at an antiques store, recently sold for $500 on Secretariat.com, Lusky said.

“I wanted to tell him how inspiring he was to me,” Jennings said of her reason for attending the event.

She remembers watching Turcotte ride at Monmouth Park in Oceanport.

“Secretariat was such a superior horse. Winning these races is such a difficult, difficult thing to do. People don’t realize what a grueling exercise it is for these horses,” she said.

Lynne Sansone of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., visiting Ocean City for the day, wandered into Stainton’s by happenstance and left with an autographed photograph, “the perfect gift” for her father, Lou Tallarico, a lifetime horse owner and lover who will celebrate his 76th birthday next week.

In meeting Turcotte, Sansone mentioned that Secretariat’s heart was twice the size of an average horse’s.

Turcotte agreed.

“He gave everything he had,” the retired jockey said of the animal that was nicknamed Big Red.

Triple Crown winners

Year    Horse              Jockey

1978    Affirmed           Steve Cauthen

1977    Seattle Slew     Jean Cruguet

1973    Secretariat        Ron Turcotte

1948    Citation            Eddie Arcaro

1946    AssaultWarren Mehrtens

1943    Count Fleet      John Longden

1941    Whirlaway        Eddie Arcaro

1937    War Admiral    Charles Kurtsinger

1935    Omaha             William Saunders

1930    Gallant Fox       Earl Sande

1919    Sir Barton         John Loftus

 

Triple Crown winning jockey Ron Turcotte signs autographs Saturday during a charitable appearance at Stainton’s.

Triple Crown winning jockey Ron Turcotte signs autographs Saturday during a charitable appearance at Stainton’s.

Triple Crown winning jockey Ron Turcotte signs autographs Saturday during a charitable appearance at Stainton’s.

A cake featuring Ron Turcotte on Secretariat, with whom he won the Triple Crown in 1973.

Ron Turcotte receives the key to the city from Mayor Jay Gillian Saturday before Turcotte’s charitable appearance at Stainton’s.

Ron Turcotte receives the key to the city from Mayor Jay Gillian Saturday before Turcotte’s charitable appearance at Stainton’s.

Ron Turcotte receives the key to the city from Mayor Jay Gillian Saturday before Turcotte’s charitable appearance at Stainton’s.

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