LOUISVILLE, Ky .(WDRB) -- The photograph has hung in every home office I’ve ever had.
It shows Secretariat in full flight — charging down the stretch at Churchill Downs in the 1973 Kentucky Derby. I believe it is the photo that ran inside Sports Illustrated, a double-truck, we used to call it in the quaint days of actual printed publications.
The picture, I believe, was taken by famed photographer Neil Leifer. The story, as related to me by my father, was that Cawood Ledford asked for a print of it. And Ledford made a print and gave it to my dad, who somewhere along the line got it signed by Penny Chenery.
That original hung in his office for most of my childhood. And still does. At some point, my dad made a print for me, which has been framed and hanging wherever I’ve gone. It’s faded,