History Film / Secretariat

* NiceHat: To Canadian audiences at least, Lucien Laurin with his crazy quilt hats looks like nothing less than the [[Series/HockeyNightInCanada Don Cherry]] of horse racing.

** Although it ''looks'' like it's played straight in the races themselves, with Red's habit of hanging out in the rear for the first two-thirds of the race.[[note]]Also TruthInTelevision—in the real 1973 Kentucky Derby, each of Secretariat's five quarter-mile fractions ''was progressively faster''. Which had never been done, and was not repeated until Mine That Bird in 2009 (note that Mine That Bird did ''not'' match Secretariat's actual fractions).[[/note]]

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Beating Sham by 1 or 2 lengths in the Belmont Stakes would have been sufficient, and 10 would have been incredible. Secretariat defeated him by an overwhelming ''thirty-one'' lengths, and never stopped accelerating until the race was well and truly over, to the point where he set a track record for the mile and five-eighths while ''coasting'' out from under the wire.

* AutomatonHorse: Actually, invoked by announcer Chic Anderson's immortal line: "He is moving like a TREMENDOUS machine!" Also TruthInTelevision, as after his death in 1990 the head of the autopsy team described them all staring at his gigantic, flawless heart in StunnedSilence.

* AutomatonHorse: Actually, invoked by announcer Chic Anderson's immortal line: "He is moving like a TREMENDOUS machine!"

* ArtisticLicense: There is absolutely no mention of Riva Ridge, winner of the 1972 Derby and Belmont and Secretariat's stablemate, who saved Meadow Stables the year before Secretariat made his Triple Crown bid. This is because it's more exciting with everything riding on Secretariat's success.

* BerserkButton: ''Do not'' tell Penny Chenery to keep her nose out of racing because it's "none of [her] business," and don't tell her to StayInTheKitchen. She will do neither, and then she will have her horse beat the pants off yours.

* CastTheExpert: Ron Turcotte was played by a jockey named Otto Thorwarth.

''Secretariat'' is a 2010 Creator/{{Disney}} film about the eponymous chestnut [[UsefulNotes/HorseRacing racehorse]] (by Bold Ruler out of Somethingroyal), who rose out of the ashes of a fallen-from-grace racing stable to bring home the first Triple Crown trophy in twenty-five years with a ''thirty-one length victory'' in the Belmont and who destroyed every relevant race and track record on the books as he did so.

''Secretariat'' is a 2010 Creator/{{Disney}} film about the eponymous chestnut [[UsefulNotes/HorseRacing racehorse]] (by Bold Ruler out of Somethingroyal), who rose out of the ashes of a fallen-from-grace racing stable to bring home the first Triple Crown trophy in twenty-five years with a ''thirty-one length victory'' in the Belmont and who destroyed every relevant race and track record on the books as he did so. The reason for this is one woman: his owner Penny Chenery, daughter of the aging, frail owner of Meadow Stables. Along with trainer Lucien Laurin, groom Eddie Sweat, and jockey Ron Turcotte, Chenery guided Secretariat through his two- and three-year-old seasons and produced arguably the greatest American racehorse to ever live.

->''In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground ...''