(Nicole Landry photo of her father, award winning photographer Dave Landry)
The sport owes Big Red a big thank you for inspiring award-winning photographer Dave Landry to pursue a career in equine photography that led him to capture some of the greatest thoroughbreds and standardbreds that have raced in the last 30 years.
The Toronto native was nine years old, and running around Woodbine Racetrack as usual on Oct. 28, 1973 when Secretariat dazzled a packed house on a gloomy day in his final career start.
“I’d seen some great horses up to that point because I had been going to the track with my dad since I was younger, but that was the first time I saw a horse that compared to a Muhammad Ali or the sports stars I watched on Wide World of Sports. That was a horse that equaled the human champions and even surpassed them. It had such an impact,” Landry said. “I thought, ‘Wow, this horse racing thing. I didn’t know it could reach those heights.’ It was so impactful on me. I remember thinking I wanted to be involved in racing somehow. Even at an early age like that I had in mind the photography and possibly photographing horses. But Secretariat was the one that really caught my attention… I couldn’t believe I was watching a superstar of that magnitude right in front of my own eyes.”
Landry’s only regret from that day is that he didn’t save one of the win tickets on which Woodbine had printed “Big Red” in Secretariat’s honor.
“I’ve covered a lot of great horses — Somebeachsomewhere, Dance Smartly, Muscle Hill, Moni Maker. They did really well in the sport, but none of them were able to top everything like Secretariat did. Secretariat reached the top. It was the top story, he was the top dog. He reached the pinnacle of horse racing. I can’t think of a horse that’s really come close to that,” Landry said.
“I always wonder when I’m out there covering it, ‘Is there going to be another one?’”
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