Secretariat would win all encounters and I'm not sure they would be close - especially if American Pharoah looked like he was going to provide real competition. He was literally a super horse. He had a genetic advantage in that his heart was literally 2 X larger than a normal horse. (Weiged 22lbs) I'm glad I'm old enough to have witnessed his career and Triple Crown victories. To this day, there has been nothing like them. It wasn't that he won, but HOW he won. He could turn it on when he wanted to, and once he did, it was OVER. You knew there was "something special" about him and later they found out that there really physically was. Just a magnificent horse - the best of all time.
An excerpt from one article on the subject of Secretariat being a Super Horse:
https://www.vafarmbureau.org/NewsVid..._X_factor.aspx
Quote:
Super Horse - While racing experts considered Secretariat a model of physical perfection, no one knew at the time that his heart was more than twice the size of an average horse’s heart. Dr. Thomas Swerzcek, professor of veterinary science at the University of Kentucky, conducted a post-mortem examination of Secretariat after the stallion died in 1989 at the age of 19. He estimated the heart to weigh an astonishing 22 pounds.
According to Swerzcek, the heart was normal in all aspects and not pathologically enlarged. Penny Chenery, who owned and raced Secretariat, called it “a bigger power pack,” according to Leeanne Meadows Ladin, co-author of Secretariat’s Meadow – The Land, The Family, The Legend. “The large heart undoubtedly contributed to Secretariat’s incredible speed and stamina,” Ladin said, “and now there’s even more research to prove it.”
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